How to increase productivity at work with a pretty Windows Terminal and smart Powerline tools
Aditya Deshlahara
Posted on March 5, 2022
Windows Terminal is the latest software update for your boring and ugly looking command-line tools like cmd, powershell and WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
Top Features:
- Google Chrome like multi-tabs suppport
- GPU acceleration (for faster text rendering)
- Split panes support(eg: 4 cmd tabs at once)
- Custom themes and styling (you dress it like you want)
- Open Source project (you too can contribute to make it better)
Microsoft’s intervention in the open-source community has opened up new doors for developers like us and has brought in more flexibility too.
Pre-requisites
- Install Windows Terminal (recommended)
- Install Powershell Core
// Windows Users, downoad file with the extension .msi
PowerShell-X.X.X-win-x64.msi
- Setup Git for Windows
- Get a good powerline font to make your prompt smart and beautiful
- Cascadia Code PL (official command line font from Microsoft)
- Nerd Fonts (choose from a variety of good fonts for the nerds like us)
STEPS TO INSTALL:
1. Download the .zip file from the releases page
2. Right-click on the font file and install it
Installation Steps - Guide
- Open PowerShell Core prompt
- Install Posh-Git using this command:
Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser
Posh-Git solves our age-old problem for checking git status
or git branch
information and provides interesting features :
Tab completion intellisense (type-in the command and it gives you auto-completion just by hitting Tab
button)
- Git commands
- Parameters /git flags
- Branch names
- Install Oh-My-Posh using this command:
Install-Module oh-my-posh -Scope CurrentUser
Oh-My-Posh adds powerful theming support and other capabilities to Powershell for making a fluid git experience possible
NOTE: While running the above commands, you may get an option to install NuGet. So go ahead and install it by pressing [Y] key
- (Optional) Install PSReadline if you are running PowerShell Core
- Customize the PowerShell prompt with custom styles
notepad $PROFILE
- Add the following lines to the notepad file and save it using
Ctrl + S
(Windows)
Import-Module posh-git
Import-Module oh-my-posh
Set-Theme Paradox
- Open Windows Terminal settings config file
- Open Windows Terminal
-
Ctrl + ,
(or manually go to settings like below)
- Set a nice default font-family for your Windows Terminal
- Find "defaults" object under "profiles" object
- Paste the following line under "defaults" object
"defaults":
{
// Put settings here that you want to apply to all profiles.
"fontFace": "Cascadia Code PL",
},
Bingo!
Now your productivity will boost up while you work on your dreams…
Posted on March 5, 2022
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March 5, 2022