Oh my Zsh

Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration.

It will not make you a 10x developer...but you may feel like one.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• A Unix-like operating system: macOS, Linux, BSD.
• Zsh should be installed. If not pre-installed (run zsh --version to confirm), check the following wiki instructions here: Installing ZSH
• curl or wget should be installed
• git should be installed (recommended v2.4.11 or higher)

Basic Installation

Oh My Zsh is installed by running one of the following commands in your terminal. You can install this via the command-line with either curl, wget or another similar tool.

Method	Command
curl	sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
wget	sh -c "$(wget -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
fetch	sh -c "$(fetch -o - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Recommendation: Powerlevel10k

Powerlevel10k is a pack of extensions and a theme for for your zsh.

Install it by executing the following command:

git clone https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/powerlevel10k

Then edit your ~/.zshrc and set ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k". Once you do so, when you start a new terminal session, the Powerlevel10 configure wizard will be launched to set your prompt, beware, there are many many options!

Powerlevel10k offers a whole lot more and is extremely configurable, best is to check its project page.

If you want to trigger the configuration wizard immediately, simply run p10k configure to discover all options, which are plentiful.

Important: Powerlevel10k will not work with standard fonts. The configuration wizzard will install a patched font called MesloLGS NF which will be able to display all the cool icons & pictograms Powerlevel10k uses.

If you want to use another font or need to set MesloLGS NF for your iTerm2/VS Code/IntelliJ check the fonts section.

Configuration

In order to configure your (oh my) zsh in almost all cases you will modify your ~/.zshrc file. \

Important: Don't forget to apply your changes after editing the config file so they take effect:

source ~/.zshrc

Pro tip: use nano instead of vim:

nano ~/.zshrc

Plugins

Oh My Zsh comes with a shitload of plugins for you to take advantage of. You can take a look in the plugins directory and/or the wiki to see what's currently available.

Enabling Plugins

Once you spot a plugin (or several) that you'd like to use with Oh My Zsh, you'll need to enable them in the .zshrc file. You'll find the zshrc file in your $HOME directory. Open it with your favorite text editor and you'll see a spot to list all the plugins you want to load.

nano ~/.zshrc

For example, this might begin to look like this:

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

Note that the plugins are separated by whitespace (spaces, tabs, new lines...). Do not use commas between them or it will break.

Using Plugins

Each plugin includes a README, documenting it. This README should show the aliases (if the plugin adds any) and extra goodies that are included in that particular plugin.

Recommended Plugins

Important: Don't forget to enable your plugin by adding it to your plugins list in your ~/.zshrc file and then execute source ~/.zshrc for your changes to take effect.

zsh-autosuggestions

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

zsh-syntax-highlighting

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

Themes

We'll admit it. Early in the Oh My Zsh world, we may have gotten a bit too theme happy. We have over one hundred and fifty themes now bundled. Most of them have screenshots on the wiki (We are working on updating this!). Check them out!

Selecting a Theme

Robby's theme is the default one. It's not the fanciest one. It's not the simplest one. It's just the right one (for him).

Once you find a theme that you'd like to use, you will need to edit the ~/.zshrc file. You'll see an environment variable (all caps) in there that looks like:

ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"

To use a different theme, simply change the value to match the name of your desired theme. For example:

ZSH_THEME="agnoster" # (this is one of the fancy ones)
# see https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Themes#agnoster

Note: many themes require installing the Powerline Fonts in order to render properly.

Open up a new terminal window and your prompt should look something like this:

In case you did not find a suitable theme for your needs, please have a look at the wiki for more of them.

If you're feeling feisty, you can let the computer select one randomly for you each time you open a new terminal window.

ZSH_THEME="random" # (...please let it be pie... please be some pie..)

And if you want to pick random theme from a list of your favorite themes:

ZSH_THEME_RANDOM_CANDIDATES=(
  "robbyrussell"
  "agnoster"
)

Fonts

A lot of themes will include special characters, icons or even emojis. These will most probably not work out of the Box, because you need a patched font.

• Source Code Pro
• Source Code Pro + Font Awesome, this one is needed if you want the icons from Font Awesome as shown in the screenshot for Powerlevel10k.
• Others @ powerline fonts

Open the downloaded font and press Install Font.

Set this font in iTerm2 (iTerm → Preferences → Profiles → Text → Font), in the dropdown select the desired Font. You will see it change on the fly.

Restart iTerm2 for all changes to take effect.

Visual Studio Code

Installing a patched font will mess up the integrated terminal in VS Code unless you use the proper settings. You'll need to go to settings (CMD + ,) and add or edit the following values:

• for Source Code Pro + Font Awesome: "terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "'SourceCodePro+Powerline+Awesome Regular'". The single quotes are important! Restart VS Code after the config change.
• for Source Code Pro: "terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "Source Code Pro for Powerline"
• for Meslo: "terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "MesloLGs NF"
• for other fonts you'll need to check the font name in Font Book. You can right click on them on select "Show in Finder" to get the exact name.

You can also set the fontsize e.g.: "terminal.integrated.fontSize": 14

IntelliJ/PyCharm etc.

coming soon

Miscellaneous

Enable word jumps and word deletion, aka natural text selection

By default, word jumps (option + → or ←) and word deletions (option + backspace) do not work. To enable these, go to "iTerm → Preferences → Profiles → Keys → Presets... → Natural Text Editing → Boom! Head explodes"

Disable user@host prefix

Append the following line to your ~/.zshrc file:

# Remove user@host from shell
prompt_context(){}

Add PATH variables

Append the following line(s) to your ~/.zshrc file:

export PATH=/your/very/special/path:$PATH
# Use quotes if you like
export PATH="/your/very/special/path:$PATH"
# Or other variables
export PATH=$HOME/your/very/special/path:$PATH