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Cover image for The 3 Plugins You'll Ever Need For Your Terminal
Daniel Bellmas
Daniel Bellmas

Posted on • Edited on

The 3 Plugins You'll Ever Need For Your Terminal

#productivity #programming #tooling #opensource

Maximizing the tools you are already using (or adding new ones) is all we're about! 🚀

Before we start we all need to have zsh installed.

What is zsh you ask?

ZSH, also called the Z shell, is an extended version of the Bourne Shell (sh), with plenty of new features, and support for plugins and themes. Since it’s based on the same shell as Bash, ZSH has many of the same features, and switching over is a breeze.

brew install zsh
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  • Install oh-my-zsh (framework for managing your zsh configuration): 
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/
master/tools/install.sh)"
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Hopefully, everything went well and you're seeing this screen now:
oh my zsh screen

Now, the plugins 🔥

zsh-autosuggestions

zsh-autosuggestions preview

  • Clone this repository: 
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
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  • Add the plugin to the list of plugins for Oh My Zsh to load (inside ~/.zshrc): 
plugins=( 
# other plugins...
zsh-autosuggestions
)
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  • Close the terminal and start a new terminal session, to see the plugin in action ⚡️

zsh-syntax-highlighting

Some examples:

Before:Before

After:After

  1. Clone this repository in oh-my-zsh's plugins directory:

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

  2. Activate the plugin in ~/.zshrc:

    plugins=( 
# other plugins...
zsh-autosuggestions
zsh-syntax-highlighting
)

  3. Restart zsh ⚡️

spaceship-prompt

spaceship-prompt preview

  • Clone this repo: 
git clone https://github.com/spaceship-prompt/spaceship-prompt.git "$ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/spaceship-prompt" --depth=1
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  • Symlink spaceship.zsh-theme to your oh-my-zsh custom themes directory: 
ln -s "$ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/spaceship-prompt/spaceship.zsh-theme" "$ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/spaceship.zsh-theme"
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  • Set ZSH_THEME="spaceship" in your .zshrc.

That's it! You're all set now 🦾

Top comments (4)

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andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden •

Great I already use them all!

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svgatorapp profile image
SVGator •

Awesome! Thanks for sharing

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minhtienvu profile image
minhtienvu •

Thanks for sharing!!

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olaf_ranai profile image
Olaf Ranai { dev-it-out } •

nice 😃 thank you