h1. dropsync, a DropBox configuration files synchronization utility

dropsync is a Perl script that will automatically place your selected set of configuration files (e.g. @.profile@, @.bashrc@, @plist@ files in Mac OS X users' @Library@ folder, etc.)

h2. Requirements

dropsync requires a fairly recent version of Perl and the following modules:

• @Getopt::Long@
• @Term::ANSIColor@
• @YAML@
• @Data::Dumper@
• @File::Basename@
• @File::Path@

It has been tested under Mac OS X 10.6.4 with Perl 5.10.0.

h2. General behavior

dropsync will first create a @dropsync@ folder in your @Dropbox@ folder (generally @/home//Dropbox@ or @/Users//Dropbox@ under Mac OS X).

Then for every file YOU have decided, dropsync will do the following:

• If the file is in its original location (e.g. @/home//.bashrc@) but NOT in the @dropsync@ folder, the file will be copied to the @dropsync@ (e.g. @dropbox/.bashrc@) folder.

• If the file is present in the @dropsync@ folder (e.g. @dropsync/.bashrc@) but no file is present in your filesystem, then the file in your dropsync folder will be copied (e.g. @/home//.bashrc@ will be copied to @dropbox/.bashrc@).

• If the file is present in the @dropsync@ folder (e.g. @dropsync/.bashrc@) and a file exists in the original location (e.g. @/home//.bashrc@), then the conflict is resolved by keeping the latest modified file and applying one of the two preceding policies accordingly.

Note: Conflic resolution policy can be modified by using one of the @force-push@ or @force-retrieve@ options described below.

h2. Usage

dropsync [-h|--help] [--version] [--verbose|-v] [--debug|-d]
    [--config-file|-f ] [--unsafe]

    --help, -h          : Print this help, then exit
    --version           : Print the script version, then exit
    --verbose, -v       : Enable verbose mode
    --debug, -d         : Enable debug mode

    --config-file, -f   : Alternate location for the configuration file
                          (Default: $HOME/.dropsyncrc.yaml)

    --force-push, -p    : Force pushing local files to the dropsync folder,
                          whatever the conflict resolution status.
    --force-retrieve, -r: Force retrieving local files from the dropsync folder,
                          whatever the conflict resolution status.

    --unsafe            : When run in unsafe mode, no backup of conflicting
                          files will be kept.
                          (This mode is not recommanded and disabled by default).

h2. Configuration file

dropsync uses a YAML-formatted configuration file. It is mainly used to specify the list of files you would like to sync with your dropsync folder.

The default location for this configuration file is @$HOME/.dropsyncrc.yaml@, where @$HOME@ is your home folder. This can be overriden using the @--config-file@ or @-f@ option when calling the @dropsync@ script.

You can also use it to change some parameters (like the location of your Dropbox folder, or the name of the dropsync folder) to non-default values.

The following options are available from the configuration file:

dropbox_location: a string defining the location of the DropBox folder, if
                  different from the default value (default: "$HOME/Dropbox")
dropsync_folder:  a string defining the name of the dropsync folder in you
                  DropBox (default: "dropsync")
files:            a YAML-formatted list of path to the files you want to sync,
                  relative to your $HOME (e.g. ".bashrc" or ".config/somerc")

An example of configuration is given in the @dropsyncrc.yaml@ file.

h2. Planned (i.e. someday) features

• Machine-specific version of files
• Logging mechanism

h2. License

This script is licensed under the "GPL v.3":http://www.gnu.org/licenses/ license. See previous link or @gpl-3.0.txt@ for further details.