~/bin/MacConfig

Files for configuring my Mac OS boxes, including hidden dot files and scripts. This repository is used to transfer changes back and forth between machines.

Inspired by Mark Carroll's dotfiles and Jason Weathered's dotfiles and scripts.

This repository is just a beginning for configuring your Mac. Consider the following repositories as well.

• Shared Config
  • Shared configuration across Mac and Windows.

The following packages are required before installing this set of tools:

• Xcode (this turns out to be optional)
• Xcode Command Line Tools
• Java JVM
• Homebrew - package manager for installing other packages
• Visual Studio Code

Then install the powershell package:

brew install powershell/tap/powershell

From GitLab:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DavidPotter/MacConfig/master/install.sh | sh

From GitHub:

curl -sL http://github.com/DavidPotter/MacConfig/raw/master/install.sh | sh

Installing in this way will do the following:

• Clone this Git repository to ~/bin/MacConfig.
• Attempt to create a symbolic link for all the files in the dotfiles subdirectory in your root directory.
• Install ~/.bash_profile and ~/.zshrc as small local files that source the matching shared loader from the repo rather than symlinking them directly. This keeps machine-local lines that tool installers append to those rc files out of version control so they don't leak to other machines.

Both shells load from the same repo, sharing everything that is shell-agnostic and differing only where bash and zsh genuinely diverge:

Files in shell.d/ and bash.d//zsh.d/ are numbered (1-, 2-, ...) so they load in a predictable order; the numbering matches across the shared and per-shell directories.

Note: dotfiles/inputrc configures GNU readline, which only bash uses. zsh ignores it entirely and reconstructs the equivalent keybindings in zsh.d/4-zle.zsh.

Older installs symlinked ~/.bash_profile straight into the repo. To convert such a machine to the stub approach (preserving any lines tools appended and reverting the tracked profile), run:

~/bin/MacConfig/scripts/migrate-bash-profile-stub

To have an existing ~/.zshrc load the shared zsh configuration (the repo loader is injected at the top, preserving your existing machine-local lines), run:

~/bin/MacConfig/scripts/migrate-zshrc-stub

Both are safe to run repeatedly and leave a hand-written rc file's own content untouched.

To take full advantage of these scripts, you also need to install the following packages.

The most convenient way to do this is by executing the install-tools.sh script.

The bash loader (dotfiles/bash_profile) and zsh loader (dotfiles/zshrc) both produce the same experience:

• Sets the command line prompt to show:
  • The current time
  • The current user and machine
  • The current directory
  • The current branch and status if in a directory that is a GIT repository
  • The exit code of the previous command, when it was non-zero
• Sets the default man pager to 'less'
• Configures the command line history
• Sets up GIT command line completion
• Defines a number of useful aliases (dir, .., etc.)
• Defines a number of useful functions:

Both shells get the same line-editing keys, configured for bash in dotfiles/inputrc (GNU readline) and reconstructed for zsh in zsh.d/4-zle.zsh (zle), since zsh ignores inputrc:

• Up/down restricts history lookup (type some characters and it restricts to those commands that begin with those characters)
• Support Ctrl-left and right arrows for word moving
• Support delete and insert keys
• Home and End jump to the start/end of the line (see the Terminal section — the Terminal profile also has to send these keys)

The following commands should be executed from a bash command line to configure the Mac for the user. [TODO: Consider moving to a script.]

# Screenshots: Stop dumping them on the Desktop
mkdir -p ~/Screenshots
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Screenshots

# Screenshots as JPEG instead of huge PNGs
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

# Show hidden files in Finder
defaults.write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles - bool true
killall Finder

# Speed up dock animation
defaults.write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.3
killall Dock

Homebrew is the next thing to install. Homebrew is a package manager for installing other packages.

Once you've installed Homebrew, you may want to install the following packages. You will install these using the syntax:

brew install <package>

Homebrew provides formulae for installing some applications. This is a convenient way to install applications that doesn't require visiting a web page and downloading a disk image file (.dmg).

Use the following command to install an application with Homebrew:

brew install --cask <cask>

Once an application has been installed, it will be available in the Application directory just like applications installed via the App Store app.

The version of bash included with macOS is very old (something like 3.2.57) and the state of art has moved on. Here are the steps to configure the latest version of bash once it's been installed:

1. Add the new version to the /etc/shells file:

   sudo bash -c "echo $(brew --prefix)/bin/bash >> /private/etc/shells"

2. Change the default terminal shell:

   sudo chsh -s $(brew --prefix)/bin/bash

3. Reboot

• shell bash 4 on macos
• Upgrade bash on your mac os !
• Upgrade to bash 4 in Mac OS X
• GNU Bash

macOS uses zsh as the default login shell, and this repo configures bash and zsh identically from a shared core (see Shell configuration layout) — use whichever you prefer. ~/.zshrc (installed by install.sh) sources the repo's zsh loader, which brings up the same prompt, history, completion, aliases, and key bindings as the bash configuration.

By default a new Terminal tab runs your login shell; a profile can be pointed at a specific shell under Terminal ▸ Settings ▸ Profiles ▸ Shell if you want a given window to run bash or zsh explicitly.

For notes on the shared-core design and the steps to move a machine's Terminal between the two shells, see MIGRATION-zsh.md.

The PowerShell cask installs an application in the Applications directory and also installs a command line tool in /user/local/bin.

To run PowerShell from the command line, execute the following command:

pwsh

By default the Home and End keys don't jump to the start/end of the line in Terminal.app. Fixing that takes two layers, and both are required:

1. Terminal must send the keys to the shell. By default Terminal.app captures Home/End for its own scrollback, so the keystrokes never reach the shell. Each profile has to be told to "Send Text" the escape sequences \033[H (Home) and \033[F (End) instead.
2. The shell must act on those sequences. Once the bytes arrive, the shell's line editor has to bind them to beginning-of-line / end-of-line. bash reads those bindings from dotfiles/inputrc (GNU readline); zsh ignores inputrc and gets the equivalent bindings from zsh.d/4-zle.zsh (zle). Both are installed by install.sh, so this layer is handled automatically for whichever shell a tab runs.

Layer 1 alone gets the bytes to the shell but nothing happens; layer 2 alone is useless while Terminal keeps eating the keys.

Note: because layer 2 lives in a different file per shell, verify Home/End in the shell the tab actually runs (echo $0) — a binding fixed in inputrc has no effect in a zsh tab, and vice versa.

Run the installer, which maps Home/End in every Terminal profile for you:

Application-Config/Terminal/install.sh

(Application-Config/install-application-configs.sh runs it, along with every other app config installer.) The script seeds each profile with Terminal's built-in default key map and then adds the two Home/End entries on top, so the profile's Keyboard settings show the complete list of mappings rather than only Home/End. It uses plutil -insert, which fills in a missing key but never overwrites an existing one, so any key mappings a profile already had are preserved; only Home/End are forced. Re-running it is harmless (idempotent).

The write goes through defaults/cfprefsd, so it's safe to run while Terminal is open — but a running Terminal caches every profile's key map at launch, won't adopt the change until it is fully quit and relaunched, and can clobber the new values with its stale in-memory copy on an ordinary quit. To make the change live on a machine whose Terminal is already running, use the clobber-safe restart, which quits Terminal, re-applies the mapping while it is down, and relaunches it:

Application-Config/Terminal/safe-restart.sh

If you'd rather set a single profile manually:

1. Bring up preferences on Terminal
2. Switch to the Profiles tab
3. Switch to the Keyboard tab of the desired profile
4. Click the + to add a new keyboard definition
5. Set the key to Home or End
6. Set Modifier to None
7. Set Action to Send Text
8. Type one of the following in the text box (press the esc key for \033):
   • Home: \033[H
   • End: \033[F

(from https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/12997/can-home-and-end-keys-be-mapped-when-using-terminal)

The following sections list the applications that I use either on every machine or on select machines depending on their use.

* Purchase required