5 ms·

An adaptive prompt for Bash and Zsh

68 points by nojhan 13y ago

sokrates 13y ago
Love it, thanks for sharing!
mcmire 13y ago
That is way too much information for me personally (I am distracted enough as it is, and I believe real-time data like battery level belongs in your menu bar, not the terminal) but I can see how it would be useful to some.
- stonith 13y ago
  If you look under features configuration there's options for turning a lot of it off. I agree that the majority probably isn't useful unless you're running without a window manager for some reason, but even just the VCS info is pretty neat.
  - nbouscal 13y ago
    Window manager doesn't necessarily imply menubar. For example, with xmonad, you don't have a menubar unless you install xmobar. This could be an alternative to that, though admittedly that's a really obscure use case. For me, most of this I don't want, and some I already have (git repo stuff), but some is new and potentially really convenient, especially the stuff for number of sleeping/background jobs.
- virtualwhys 13y ago
  Yeah, Conky or similar status bar window manager widget is better for me for the real-time data (battery, cpu temp, date/time, etc.); too much to visually parse otherwise. Definitely some nice features in here at first glance (colored directory perms and colored root vs. normal user are real nice-to-haves for example).
- nojhan 13y ago
  That's amusing, because I've started liquidprompt for this very specific reason: I was constantly missing the battery notification icon. Time seems to have trained my brain not to look at this screen area. Fortunately, with liquidprompt alerts are spoting just where I look at, and only when necessary.
AdamGibbins 13y ago
This has nothing specific to OS X, unsure to why OS X is in the title.
- edu 13y ago
  Some admin should fix it: it's for Bash and ZSH.
- nojhan 13y ago
  To be honest, just because I've tried to pass this link in hackernews several times without success, with different combination of keywords/users. I was a little bit shameful at the beginning, but the overwhelming success (from the perspective of this very little software: github stars * 2) is interesting. It seems that some keywords are more efficient than others. Let's consider this practice as social engineering.
mofle 13y ago
Some time back I created my own ZSH prompt as I wanted something fast and minimal, where most others were too feature rich. It's also a good base if you want to create your own. https://github.com/sindresorhus/pure https://github.com/sindresorhus/pure
- michaelhoffman 13y ago
  This is much more appealing to me.
- patrickod 13y ago
  what version of ZSH are you using? I'm having issues installing this on Ubuntu where the metadata commands aren't executing and are instead printed as $vcs_info_msg_0_`git_dirty` $username `cmd_exec_time`
  - mofle 13y ago
    Latest - 5.0.2
    - patrickod 13y ago
      Interesting. I installed 5.0.2, removed anything that would be interfering with my .zshrc and still have the same problems.
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Not my screenshot (and I use Tango with Konsole) but I like the agnoster+zsh combo.
ralph 13y ago
I use PS1='$ ' on the local machine and 'foo$ ' if I've ssh'd to foo. I prefer this because: the location of the cursor is more fixed, it doesn't wander across the columns as the environment changes, so my eye finds it more quickly; I've a decent amount of line left before it wraps at the end of the terminal, and I often type 100+-character pipelines on the fly; a couple of taps of Enter gives almost blank lines that logically separate when needed.
- wereHamster 13y ago
  Solution to that: multi-line prompts. First line with lots of info, second line just '$ '. Or RPROMPT if you are using zsh ([...] RPROMPT parameter. If this is set, the shell puts a prompt on the right side of the screen.)
  - ralph 13y ago
    That wouldn't give the sequence of almost-blank lines I find most helpful. It would also merge the first, long, line of the prompt with the tail of the previous command's output.
arhayward 13y ago
I've been using (a slightly modified version of) https://github.com/dotcode/multi-shell-repo-prompt https://github.com/dotcode/multi-shell-repo-prompt for a while now. Conveys what I consider to be relevant, anyway.
philh 13y ago
zsh has RPROMPT, which displays on the right of your prompt and gets overwritten if you write a long command. I use it to show the last command's exit status and my current git branch, effectively without taking up space.
rdl 13y ago
A bit busy for me. I stick to time@host:dir and then a symbol for security level (root, admin, role, personal, daemon, test). Thinking about doing different color schemes for different hosts, too.

68 points by nojhan 13y ago

Love it, thanks for sharing!

That is way too much information for me personally (I am distracted enough as it is, and I believe real-time data like battery level belongs in your menu bar, not the terminal) but I can see how it would be useful to some.

stonith 13y ago
If you look under features configuration there's options for turning a lot of it off. I agree that the majority probably isn't useful unless you're running without a window manager for some reason, but even just the VCS info is pretty neat.
- nbouscal 13y ago
  Window manager doesn't necessarily imply menubar. For example, with xmonad, you don't have a menubar unless you install xmobar. This could be an alternative to that, though admittedly that's a really obscure use case. For me, most of this I don't want, and some I already have (git repo stuff), but some is new and potentially really convenient, especially the stuff for number of sleeping/background jobs.
virtualwhys 13y ago
Yeah, Conky or similar status bar window manager widget is better for me for the real-time data (battery, cpu temp, date/time, etc.); too much to visually parse otherwise. Definitely some nice features in here at first glance (colored directory perms and colored root vs. normal user are real nice-to-haves for example).
nojhan 13y ago
That's amusing, because I've started liquidprompt for this very specific reason: I was constantly missing the battery notification icon. Time seems to have trained my brain not to look at this screen area. Fortunately, with liquidprompt alerts are spoting just where I look at, and only when necessary.

AdamGibbins 13y ago

This has nothing specific to OS X, unsure to why OS X is in the title.

edu 13y ago
Some admin should fix it: it's for Bash and ZSH.
nojhan 13y ago
To be honest, just because I've tried to pass this link in hackernews several times without success, with different combination of keywords/users. I was a little bit shameful at the beginning, but the overwhelming success (from the perspective of this very little software: github stars * 2) is interesting. It seems that some keywords are more efficient than others. Let's consider this practice as social engineering.

mofle 13y ago

Some time back I created my own ZSH prompt as I wanted something fast and minimal, where most others were too feature rich. It's also a good base if you want to create your own. https://github.com/sindresorhus/pure https://github.com/sindresorhus/pure

michaelhoffman 13y ago
This is much more appealing to me.
patrickod 13y ago
what version of ZSH are you using? I'm having issues installing this on Ubuntu where the metadata commands aren't executing and are instead printed as $vcs_info_msg_0_`git_dirty` $username `cmd_exec_time`
- mofle 13y ago
  Latest - 5.0.2
  - patrickod 13y ago
    Interesting. I installed 5.0.2, removed anything that would be interfering with my .zshrc and still have the same problems.

drivebyacct2 13y ago

Not my screenshot (and I use Tango with Konsole) but I like the agnoster+zsh combo.

ralph 13y ago

I use PS1='$ ' on the local machine and 'foo$ ' if I've ssh'd to foo. I prefer this because: the location of the cursor is more fixed, it doesn't wander across the columns as the environment changes, so my eye finds it more quickly; I've a decent amount of line left before it wraps at the end of the terminal, and I often type 100+-character pipelines on the fly; a couple of taps of Enter gives almost blank lines that logically separate when needed.

wereHamster 13y ago
Solution to that: multi-line prompts. First line with lots of info, second line just '$ '. Or RPROMPT if you are using zsh ([...] RPROMPT parameter. If this is set, the shell puts a prompt on the right side of the screen.)
- ralph 13y ago
  That wouldn't give the sequence of almost-blank lines I find most helpful. It would also merge the first, long, line of the prompt with the tail of the previous command's output.

arhayward 13y ago

I've been using (a slightly modified version of) https://github.com/dotcode/multi-shell-repo-prompt https://github.com/dotcode/multi-shell-repo-prompt for a while now. Conveys what I consider to be relevant, anyway.

philh 13y ago

zsh has RPROMPT, which displays on the right of your prompt and gets overwritten if you write a long command. I use it to show the last command's exit status and my current git branch, effectively without taking up space.

rdl 13y ago

A bit busy for me. I stick to time@host:dir and then a symbol for security level (root, admin, role, personal, daemon, test). Thinking about doing different color schemes for different hosts, too.