Oh My Zsh + PowerLevel10k = 😎 terminal

Hi there, The developers always use the terminal, but it is boring and has no colors or shapes.
Today we will transform our terminals into a wonderful, colorful, supportive terminal that offers suggestions and has a memory, we'll do it by OMZ and design it by PowerLevel10k...

Pre-requisites

if you're using Windows, you can install and configure WSL

and I recommended to use Ubuntu or Debian wsl plugin

• Homebrew is installed

Setup zsh

in the command line type

brew install zsh

type zsh

zsh

Install Oh My Zsh

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

PowerLevel10k

• Install Powerlevel10k using the following command

# gh cli
gh repo clone romkatv/powerlevel10k $ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/powerlevel10k

# git
git clone https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/powerlevel10k

Then you need to enable it, change the value of ZSH_THEME to following in ~/.zshrc file :

ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"

Configure Powerlevel10k Theme

• Make sure your terminal font is FiraCode NF.

font link: url

for windows users: url

Cheat-sheet for Windows

if you've Windows terminal you can open your settings and in UNIX preferences and add fontFace prop,
assign it to FiraCode NF.

{
  "guid": "{YOUR_UNIX_GUID}",
  "hidden": false,
  "name": "Ubuntu",
  "source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl",
  "fontFace": "FiraCode NF",
  "snapOnInput": true,
  "useAcrylic": true
}

Windows Terminal url in Microsoft Store: url

Windows Terminal repo: url

p10k configure

type

p10k configure

you can choose your style...

Plugins (Optional, Good to have!)

Clone plugins

• zsh-syntax-highlighting - It enables highlighting of commands whilst they are typed at a zsh prompt into an interactive terminal. This helps in reviewing commands before running them, particularly in catching syntax errors.

# gh cli
gh repo clone zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

# git
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

• zsh-autosuggestions - It suggests commands as you type based on history and completions.

# gh cli
gh repo clone zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

# git
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

ls tools

• colorls: A Ruby script that colorizes the ls output with color and icons

• exa: is a modern replacement for ls

colorls

sudo gem install colorls

warn 🙃

maybe you'll get some gem errors, you should fix it

Linux

sudo apt install ruby-full

exa

brew install exa

special thanks

special thanks to

Ole-Martin Bratteng

to showing me exa

Activate the plugins

In ~/.zshrc file replace the line starting with plugins=() to below line.

plugins=( git zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autosuggestions )

colorls

if [ -x "$(command -v colorls)" ]; then
    alias ls="colorls"
    alias la="colorls -al"
fi

or exa

if [ -x "$(command -v exa)" ]; then
    alias ls="exa"
    alias la="exa --long --all --group"
fi

Some more official plugins - ohmyzsh plugins

after all these steps type

source ~/.zshrc

Finally it should be like this 👇

Mac

Windows(WSL) or Linux

That's it, see you next time 👋

Comments

[Yahya]

Hello thanks for sharing I have an issue with it some icons is not showing what could make this issue

[abdfn]

Hi, the problem is from the font, try Hack nerd or MesloLGS NF fonts

[Yahya]

thanks for reply I have used both and the issues till there and I even downloaded the 4 fonts from their GitHub repo and install them and I can't see them

[abdfn]

What's your system ?
And which terminal do you use ?

[Yahya]

Mac os big sur i use the normal terminal and I have installed iterm2 and issue still with icons is there too :)

[abdfn]

Ok, go to iTerm preferences, 👉 profiles 👉 general and paste /bin/zsh.
after this restart iTerm2.

Make sure your font in preferences 👉 profiles 👉 text is MesloLGS NF.

Go to the terminal and type

source ~/.zshrc

and configure your design

[Yahya]

Thanks Alot it fixed the issue much appreciated
:)

[abdfn]

Anytime bro 🤝

[Ole-Martin Bratteng]

I can recommend exa as a replacement for colorls
the.exa.website/

[abdfn]

WOW, It's good, I'll try it 👍, can you tell me what is the font on the image ?

[Ole-Martin Bratteng]

It's FiraCode with NerdFont patches

[abdfn]

Nice, I tried exa and it's very powerful

[Ole-Martin Bratteng]

I've got this in my .zshrc file

if [ -x "$(command -v exa)" ]; then
    alias ls="exa"
    alias la="exa --long --all --group"
fi

[abdfn]

This is better

[Ole-Martin Bratteng]

Yeah, I wrap all my aliases in if clauses, that way I can share my dotfiles across systems, and not worry if e.g. exa isn't installed on that particular machine, I still have the original ls

[abdfn]

what an idea, you've an amazing 🧠