On ZSH
29 Jan 2009 - Georgia Tech
Ever since I really got into programming, and making my computer work the way I want rather than the way someone else does, I've heard a lot about zsh. It gets near endless praise among most everyone I know who uses it. Really, I'm told there's a lot to like.
However, transitioning from bash to zsh might not be all that easy, especially given that I already have a fairly nice bash config (mostly thanks to Nathan Weizenbaum. Right now, I'm taking the easy way out, and using someone else's config. That's only a stop-gap solution though. Really, I'd like to get to the point where I can come up with my own suitably acceptable config that "just works".
What I really need out of a shell is simple enough, but it'll be a bit of an interesting adventure to migrate it all from bash to zsh:
- Colors (both in directory listings/completions and in commands like git)
- Auto-completion for as many tools under the sun as possible (even better if it's fuzzy)
- A super sexy prompt. Namely a perfect clone of the one I currently have (user@host ~/full/path/with/tilde/snafu[gitbranch])
I'm sure there are a few other things that I enjoy using in a shell, but those are really the main criteria. Hopefully, in getting those (and more) set up in my zsh config, others will be able to find something new and make use of it.
You can follow my progress by following my dotfiles repository, or by just taking a gander at the zsh-specific stuff I'm working on.
Edit: I've pretty much finished all my work on it up. The two relevant bits are the git prompt snafu and the main rc file.