How to increase productivity at work with a pretty Windows Terminal and smart Powerline tools

Windows Terminal is the latest software update for your boring and ugly looking command-line tools like cmd, powershell and WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

Top Features:

• Google Chrome like multi-tabs suppport
• GPU acceleration (for faster text rendering)
• Split panes support(eg: 4 cmd tabs at once)
• Custom themes and styling (you dress it like you want)
• Open Source project (you too can contribute to make it better)

Microsoft’s intervention in the open-source community has opened up new doors for developers like us and has brought in more flexibility too.

Pre-requisites

• Install Windows Terminal (recommended)
• Install Powershell Core

// Windows Users, downoad file with the extension .msi
PowerShell-X.X.X-win-x64.msi

• Setup Git for Windows
• Get a good powerline font to make your prompt smart and beautiful
  • Cascadia Code PL (official command line font from Microsoft)
  • Nerd Fonts (choose from a variety of good fonts for the nerds like us)

STEPS TO INSTALL:
1. Download the .zip file from the releases page
2. Right-click on the font file and install it

Installation Steps - Guide

1. Open PowerShell Core prompt
2. Install Posh-Git using this command:

Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser

Posh-Git solves our age-old problem for checking git status or git branch information and provides interesting features :

Tab completion intellisense (type-in the command and it gives you auto-completion just by hitting Tab button)

• Git commands
• Parameters /git flags
• Branch names

1. Install Oh-My-Posh using this command:


Install-Module oh-my-posh -Scope CurrentUser


Oh-My-Posh adds powerful theming support and other capabilities to Powershell for making a fluid git experience possible

NOTE: While running the above commands, you may get an option to install NuGet. So go ahead and install it by pressing [Y] key

• (Optional) Install PSReadline if you are running PowerShell Core
• Customize the PowerShell prompt with custom styles

notepad $PROFILE

• Add the following lines to the notepad file and save it using Ctrl + S (Windows)

Import-Module posh-git
Import-Module oh-my-posh
Set-Theme Paradox

• Open Windows Terminal settings config file
• Open Windows Terminal
• Ctrl + , (or manually go to settings like below)

• Set a nice default font-family for your Windows Terminal

1. Find "defaults" object under "profiles" object
2. Paste the following line under "defaults" object

"defaults":
   {
     // Put settings here that you want to apply to all profiles.
     "fontFace": "Cascadia Code PL",
   },

Bingo!

Now your productivity will boost up while you work on your dreams…

Comments

[Saurabh Solanke]

Noice