Transforming Your Terminal Experience for Enhanced Productivity, Speed, and Aesthetics

Supercharge your productivity by transforming your terminal experience for enhanced productivity, speed, and aesthetics.


Transforming Your Terminal Experience for Enhanced Productivity, Speed, and Aesthetics

In this article, we’ll show you how to transform your terminal into a productivity, speedy and visually appealing one. We’ll cover everything from changing your shell to installing themes, plugins, and fonts. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a sleek, efficient, and personalized terminal that matches your workflow.

Step 1: Checking Your Current Shell

First things first, let’s identify your currently activated shell. Open your terminal and execute either of the following commands:

echo $SHELL
or
echo $0

The output will reveal your currently active shell. Additionally, you can list all available shells using the following command:

cat /etc/shells

Follow the below steps to setup & configure the Terminal

In this article, we consider the Bash terminal that will available in Linux and macOS.

Step 2: Switching to Zsh

Install Zsh Shell

Zsh is a powerful alternative to the default Bash shell. Its versatility and customization options make it a popular choice among developers. To install Zsh, follow the steps based on your operating system:

< /etc/shells grep zsh
outout:
/bin/zsh
/usr/bin/zsh

Installation

sudo apt update
sudo apt install zsh
sudo yum install zsh
zypper install zsh
pacman -S zsh
dnf install zsh
pkg install zsh
brew install zsh

or you can download it from source http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Arc/source.html

Official Installation Doc: https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Installing-ZSH

Check zsh version: zsh --version

Zsh has been installed successfully.

Now, make zsh as default terminal:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

If you want to switch back to the default bash or any other terminal, then run the below command.

chsh -s /bin/bash or exec bash
or
chsh -s /bin/zsh or exec zsh

You need to rester your shell to activate the zsh plugin.

Step 3: Installing Oh My Zsh

Oh My Zsh is beautiful framework for managing Zsh configurations. To install it, use either of the following methods:

Install oh my zsh

Oh my zsh is an open-source framework for managing Zsh configuration.

Install via Curl

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Install via wget

sh -c "$(wget https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh -O -)"

Manual Installation

curl -Lo install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh

Edit your .zshrc file to ensure the Zsh configuration variable is set to Oh My Zsh:

Open zshrc file: > sudo nano ~/.zshrc export ZSH="$HOME/.oh-my-zsh"

Make sure the above variable is set inside the zshrc file. If it’s not there then edit the file and add the above line.

Reload your configuration by running source ~/.zshrc.

Step 4: Exploring Themes

The appearance of your terminal can greatly impact your workflow. Oh My Zsh comes with a variety of themes to choose from. Some popular options are robbyrussell and agnoster. To set a theme, edit your .zshrc file:

For Robby Russell theme:

ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"

For Agnoster theme:

ZSH_THEME="agnoster"

Check out the full list of Oh My Zsh themes on their GitHub page. You can also explore external themes like Powerlevel10k or Spaceship.

Some of the popular themes are Powerlevel10k, Powerlevel9k, Spaceship, Bullet-Train, etc…

Powerlevel10k

Powerlvel10k is a fully customizable and more advanced theme of zsh.

Installation

For Oh my zsh

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k

then, add set the theme in ZSH_THME variable in .zshrc file.

ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"

Configure Powerlevel10k

Type command: p10 configure to start Powerlevel10k configuration.

Or also you can edit the configuration file: ~/.p10k.zsh

For more details: https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k

Spaceship

Another powerful theme is Spaceship. It comes with many features and an extremely customizable zsh prompt theme.

Installation

For Oh My Zsh

git clone https://github.com/denysdovhan/spaceship-prompt.git "$ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/spaceship-prompt" --depth=1

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"

Then set the ZSH_THEME variable in .zshrc

ZSH_THEME="spaceship"

For more details: https://denysdovhan.com/spaceship-prompt/

Step 5: Plugins

Oh My Zsh supports a wide range of plugins to boost your productivity. To activate plugins, add them to the plugins array in your .zshrc file:

plugins=(git node autojump ... )

zsh-autosuggestions

For Oh-My-Zsh

First, clone the directory using git

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

and activate the plugin

plugins=(... zsh-autosuggestions)

Or Manual Installation

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions

and add the following line to ~/.zshrc

source ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh

and restart the terminal.

zsh-syntax-highlighting Installation

For Zsh

Clone the git repo

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git
echo "source ${(q-)PWD}/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh" >> ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zshrc

Then enable the plugin

source ./zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh

For Oh-My-Zsh

Clone the repo

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

And add the zsh-syntax-highlighting value in plugins variable

plugins=(... zsh-syntax-highlighting)

And restart the terminal.

Before

After

z or Zsh-z

Z allows you to jump quickly to the directory that you visited most in the past. Z will remember the path you’ve entered frequently and helped you to jump around them with few keystrokes.

Z uses regular expression.

To enable z plugin, assing z to your plugin variable.

plugins=(... z )

Plugin:Z

For more oh-my-zsh plugins: https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Plugins

Step 6: Fonts and Colors

Enhance readability and visual appeal by installing patched fonts for your terminal. Powerline fonts, such as Fira Mono or Hack, are popular choices. Additionally, you can customize colors using built-in schemes like Tango or Solarized.

Install Powerline fonts

sudo apt-get install fonts-powerline

For more options: https://github.com/powerline/fonts#quick-installation

Download and Install the Powerline/Nerd font

Then select the preferable front in custom font inside the text tab in Preferences.

Change the colors(color scheme) of the Terminal Open the preferences and select the second tab => Colors.

Available Buil-in Schemes are: Tango & Solarized are recommended.

You can also customize the colors according to your preference in the custom tab.

Additionally: Supercharge with Starship Starship is a blazing-fast, customizable prompt for any shell. Installation is straightforward:

Installation Using curl

curl -fsSL https://starship.rs/install.sh | bash

With Brew

brew install starship

With Scoop

scoop install starship

After installation, add the below line to init the Starship

For Bash(~/.bashrc)

eval "$(starship init bash)"

For Zsh(~/.zshrc)

eval "$(starship init zsh)"

For Fish(~/.config/fish/config.fish)

starship init fish | source

Configuration Starship uses Ta OML file for configuration.

TOML Doc: https://github.com/toml-lang/toml

To get started configuring starship, create the config file starship.toml inside .config direcotry.

starship.toml

add_newline = false
symbol = "➜"
[language]
symbol='*'
.
.
.

For prompt configuration visit: https://starship.rs/config/#prompt

Other options(tmux, tilix, etc..)…

If you want to take your terminal multitasking to the next level, consider using tools like Tmux or Tilix. These tools allow you to split your terminal window into multiple panes, enhancing your efficiency.

Congratulations! You’ve transformed your terminal into a sleek and powerful tool that matches your workflow. With a customized shell, themes, plugins, and fonts, you’re ready to take on any coding task with enhanced productivity.

Thanks for reading!



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