Customizing ZSH

I love zsh. It takes everything that bash does, and makes it 10x better; including customization.

Installation §

Install zsh Since I don’t use frameworks, this tutorial will use vanilla zsh.

Prompt §

zsh completely fixes the bash PS1 variable using prompt expansions. Since the default zsh prompt kind of sucks, lets make it better.

Place this in your ~/.zshrc and reload zsh.

### ~/.zshrc ###
...
PROMPT="%~ %% "
...

Using more prompt expansions, this is my zsh prompt.

### ~/.zshrc ###
PROMPT="%F{blue}%~%f %B%(?.%F{green}.%F{red})%f%b "

Here’s a list of all prompt expansions.

If this level of customization isn’t enough, I’d checkout starship.

Plugins §

Syntax Highlighting §

zsh-syntax-highlighting colors invalid commands red and underlines valid paths.

Installation §

Clone the zsh-syntax-highlighting git repo.

mkdir ~/.config/zsh; cd ~/.config/zsh
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting

Source the repo at the end of your ~/.zshrc.

### ~/.zshrc ###
...
source ~/.config/zsh/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh

For more info on installing zsh-syntax-highlighting, see here.

Auto Suggestions §

zsh-autosuggestions predicts what you are about to type based on your history.

Installation §

The installation is essentially the same as Syntax Highlighting.

Clone the git repo,

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

Then source it in your ~/.zshrc.

### ~/.zshrc ###
...
source ~/.config/zsh/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh
source ~/.config/zsh/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh

Aliases §

Since I talk a lot about aliases in this vault, I won’t go into any specific use-cases, but aliases are really handy in some certain situations. Since I have a lot of aliases, I keep them in a separate file, then source the file.

Create Alias file §

Create a new file at ~/.config/zsh/aliasrc. This file will hold all of your aliases and short functions. Then source the file in your ~/.zshrc.

### ~/.zshrc ###
...
source ~/.config/zsh/aliasrc
...

My aliasrc looks like this:

### ~/.config/zsh/aliasrc ###
# doas
alias s="sudo"
alias su="gum confirm 'root?' && sudo -s || echo 'never mind'"
 
# exa
alias ls="exa -a1 --icons --group-directories-first"
alias tree="exa -T"
 
alias feh="feh --no-fehbg "
 
alias e="$EDITOR"
 
# cd
alias cdtemp='cd $(mktemp -d)'
mkcd() {
	mkdir -pv "$1" && cd "$_" || exit
}
alias mkdir='mkcd'
 
alias wm_test="Xephyr :5 & sleep 1 ; DISPLAY=:5 "
alias neofetch="pfetch"
alias stopwatch='time cat'
alias wget='curl -O '

To add an alias without entering the file, I use this command:

echo "alias hello='echo hello'" >> ~/.config/zsh/aliasrc