The octicon font by github (https://github.com/styleguide/css/) provides some nice icons embedded in a font. This package gives an easier access to them and must be used with the relevant face (octicons).
I do not provide the octicon font. You will need to install it yourself from the github styleguide site (search in the page source).
This define a mode-line that prepend an octoface (github) if the file is under a version control system
(require 'octicons)
(make-face 'octicons-mode-line)
(set-face-attribute 'octicons-mode-line nil
:inherit 'mode-line
:inherit 'octicons)
(setq-default mode-line-format (list
" "
'(:eval (if (vc-backend buffer-file-name)
(list
(propertize octicon-octoface 'face 'octicons-modeline)
(propertize " " 'face 'mode-line))))
mode-line-mule-info
'mode-line-modified
"- "
'mode-line-buffer-identification
" (%l, %c) "
'mode-line-modes
" -- "
`(vc-mode vc-mode)
))
You should obtain something like this: