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?

[tpsteiner]

Related: I use windows with WSL. AltSnap has been frustrating since the tool expects config file AltSnap.ini to be in %APPDATA%/AltSnap with no option to change the location. I created an absolute-path symlink in the appdata folder to the source file, which is in my WSL environment \wsl$\Arch\home[USER].local\share\chezmoi\dot_config\altsnap\AltSnap.ini
The symlink doesn't work, unfortunately. Maybe altsnap doesn't like the WSL path? I'm not sure what the solution is here, so I will just keep it out of my dotfiles :(

[LeonardoMor]

Is AltSnap one application that you use both on Windows and in WSL/Linux?

[tpsteiner]

I only use AltSnap on windows
EDIT: Some more context. I started with one dotfiles folder per system (one for Windows, another for WSL). Later I moved everything to the WSL environment to reduce updating steps, since they are both on the same hard drive anyways.

[LeonardoMor]

I see. In that case, I'd still clone the dotfiles repo on both WSL and Windows itself. Then on the .chezmoiignore file, I'd add something like:

{{- if eq .chezmoi.os "windows" }}
*
!path_to_AltSnap_config_relative_to_home
{{- end }}

But this does not avoid having the files duplicated in the system

[tpsteiner]

Thanks, that is a good way to solve it that does not introduce too much clutter. However I decided to solve it differently. I made a file run_after_sync-altsnap-to-windows.sh.tmpl to copy the files to windows after apply. That way i don't have to open a windows shell, then chezmoi update. I did this with my other windows config files as well, and it seems to work as expected.