![]() ![]() Previously, I used to avoid switching themes in the terminal, because it never seemed to work cleanly. I mostly use a dark theme, but sometimes my eyes feel like they need a light background. Better still, it carries through beautifully to vim/neovim if you use the terminal versions of those editors. This allows you to skip having to set up themes in Terminal or iTerm2, and instead change them on the fly with a command at the command line. The themes themselves are very nicely done (I use base16-material for a dark theme and base16_one-light or base16_tomorrow for a light theme), but the base16-shell tool makes it even better. Finally, in my wanderings through other people’s dotfiles, I came across the base16 framework for syntax highlighting themes. It is incredibly handy once you’ve got it set up, and makes navigating around deeply nested folders simple. Once you hit enter, you are back on your command line, and you can complete your command. ![]() This is filtered as you type in a ‘fuzzy’ fashion, so it’s easy to narrow it down to what you want. vim ), then hit Ctrl-t and a recursive list of files in your current directory pops up. If you want to open a file or cd to a directory (which isn’t yet recorded in z), you can start to type the command (e.g. I also installed (properly this time) z which enables you to easily jump to directories you have previously visited, and fzf which is like Alfred or Launchbar for the command line. I did clean out some of the plugins that I wasn’t using to make things a bit snappier. I’m not sure that I really need all that configurability, since my use of the shell is fairly simple, but for now I’m sticking with it. I use zsh as my shell, along with the ubiquitous oh my zsh. I have started using pyenv to manage my Python versions (with the help of specific requirements.txt files), and I am thinking about using a Homebrew Brewfile to be able to easily reinstall all the tools I need. I’m not quite there yet, but my aim is to set this system up so that I could bootstrap a full installation of my command line tools and configuration on a fresh system. It made me think about the best way to organise my configuration files to make it easier to keep them up to date, so that was a bonus. You can optionally run shell commands (‘actions’) as you do so, which is handy for updating vim plugins after you have copied your vim config across. The idea is that you create a *.yaml format config file to tell dotdrop how to link (or copy) your files into your home directory. I ended up with dotdrop, which I have to say I like a lot. ![]() I decided to start with a more or less clean slate, and looked around for an easier way to maintain my configuration (dotfiles), that would allow me to sync them between the various machines I use. A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed a total spring clean of my command line setup, to rationalise it a bit, as it had got cluttered up with layers of things that I had tried out then dropped, or which had become broken with updates of other elements of the system: in other words, dependency hell. After my workload subsided a bit, I wandered between different editors, but not really settling. I didn’t have time to fix it, and so went back to using Sublime Text (which is also a fantastic text editor). I used it for quite a while until I got to a busy patch and simultaneously had a persistent issue with org mode and a couple of other things. I love Spacemacs and think it is a terrific project with lots of fantastic features. My most recent serious editor exploration was of Spacemacs. With that in mind, I got the editor-tinkering itch recently, so I thought I’d write about about the changes I’ve made. It is also the case that editors are being improved all the time, so it is worth occasionally trying out (or re-visiting) and editor to see if it fits your needs better than your current system. For one thing, I think there probably isn’t such a thing: I use a text editor for many different tasks, and in each of those I have different priorities for my working environment. I’ve long since come to terms with the fact that I will probably never settle for good on the One True Text Editor. Let’s face it, if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know full well that I need no excuse whatsoever to tinker with my setup. I’m not someone who sets about the house with a duster and mop when spring arrives, but I am a fan of having a spring clean of my text editing setup. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |