Customizable directories by OS?

[drmohundro]

The scenario I'm thinking about here is the Neovim config... on Mac and Linux, Neovim follows the typical XDG approach and defaults to ~/.config/nvim; however, on Windows, the default for configuration is under ~/AppData/Local/nvim. My initial thought is to have a directory for Neovim config that has a per-OS customizable target (e.g. Mac/Linux => ~/.config/nvim and Windows => ~/AppData/Local/nvim), but maybe that isn't the best idea. I've read over the docs and searched through the issues, but I haven't found anything just yet.

I suppose another option might be to define the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable in Windows to point to ~/.config and just use that along with a dot_config directory?

Just trying to weigh my options here.

Thanks!

[twpayne]

Symbolic links are one option, another is to use a shared template, as described here.

[twpayne]

Now at https://www.chezmoi.io/user-guide/manage-machine-to-machine-differences/#handle-different-file-locations-on-different-systems-with-the-same-contents.

[LeonardoMor]

Yeah found that later and came back to post the link.

For something like Neovim though, what's common is the entire nvim directory. I suppose in this case it would be better to use a symbolic link. Then edit .chezmoiignore accordingly.

Am I too far off?

[twpayne]

What you suggest makes sense.

In the long term I would like to implement #2273, but I don't know when or if this will be done.

[LeonardoMor]

Yeah, it does look complicated.

The good thing is, for single OS use, chezmoi is pretty much there.

[LeonardoMor]

What does chezmoi do when the only thing inside a source dir is a simlink to another dir in the source dir?

[Archie-2021]

I have to use Windows , and like to use the same git repo I have for Linux. I don't get what should I do? like where should I have to clone my repo for chezmoi to look? AppData/chezmoi ?
And should I have to change all my config files into templates? That would be a pain. I just want to share couple of my dotfiles, not much. and I also like to keep my ahk scripts inside my dotfiles and that is it. Can I do that without a major overhaul of my dotfiles repo?

[LeonardoMor]

Not necessarily. This is what I planned to do for example for Neovim, just have a directory that contains the Neovim configs. Then two more directories one for Linux and one for Windows, with the directory structure that each needs.

Then do symbolic links from the dir that contains the configs to the system dirs.

Then make it so that the Windows dir is ignored on Linux and viceversa.

Notice you can do it with 2 dirs instead of 3 :)

Repeat with any other multi OS config.

I didn´t get to do or test this as my employer finally gave me a Linux laptop so I don´t know if something like this is going to work.

[Triavanicus]

I am probably going to look into this, as I have to use Windows for school. Windows can create symbolic links, so maybe I could do something like create a file in chezmoi like run_onchange_windows_create_links.ps1.tmpl which then test to see if it is on Windows, and runs mklink -D $env:USERPROFILE/.config/nvim $env:APPDATA/nvim or something.