Customizing a Terminal With Zsh

Table of Contents

• 1. Zsh

• 2. Oh My Zsh

  • Plugins

• 3. Changing theme (optional)

• 4. Changing auto-update behavior (optional)

  • Disable automatic updates

1. Zsh

Zsh is an alternative to Bash. Many of the useful features of Bash were incorporated into Zsh, but also many original features were added.

• Installing and Setting Up Zsh as Default

2. Oh My Zsh

Oh My Zsh is a framework for managing your Zsh configuration.

You don't strictly need it as you can simply choose the "Manual Installation (Git Clone)" option for the plugins.

• Installing Oh My Zsh

Plugins

To use plugins with Oh My Zsh, you'll need to git clone and enable them in your ~/.zshrc file.

These are the plugins most people use with Zsh:

• zdharma/fast-syntax-highlighting: It adds syntax highlighting while you type commands, allowing you to quickly check if they are correct.

• zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions: It suggests commands using your history while you type (like a fuzzy finder).

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

3. Changing theme (optional)

You can choose between themes from Oh My Zsh by replacing ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell" in ~/.zshrc. I personally like the default theme, so I just leave it there.

4. Changing auto-update behavior (optional)

By default, you will be prompted to confirm updates every 2 weeks. I find this behavior pretty annoying.

You can choose other update modes by uncommenting one of the lines in your ~/.zshrc file.

Disable automatic updates

zstyle ':omz:update' mode disabled