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Customize your terminal and PowerShell experience
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Configuring Terminal and PowerShell.md

Configuring Terminal and PowerShell

If you're looking to customize your terminal and PowerShell experience, this guide will walk you through the process step by step. We'll be using a combination of different tools including Oh My Posh, Terminal-Icons, and PowerShell 7.

Note: This guide assumes you're using Windows 10.

Installation

The first step is to install the necessary software. Open PowerShell as an administrator and run the following commands:

winget install --id=Microsoft.WindowsTerminal -e
Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser
winget install nepnep.neofetch-win
winget install JanDeDobbeleer.OhMyPosh -s winget
Install-Module -Name PSReadLine -AllowPrerelease -Scope CurrentUser -Force -SkipPublisherCheck
Install-Module -Name Terminal-Icons -Repository PSGallery -Scope CurrentUser

These commands will install the Windows Terminal, posh-git, neofetch, Oh My Posh, PSReadLine, and Terminal-Icons.

Fonts

To use custom fonts with Oh My Posh, you need a Nerd Font. You can choose any font you like from nerdfonts.com, but for this guide we'll use SpaceMono NF. You can install it automatically or manually:

To install the font trough Oh My Posh (automatic):

  1. Open an elevated console:
  2. Execute: oh-my-posh font install SpaceMono

To install the font (manual way):

  1. Download the font from github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/download/v2.1.0/SpaceMono.zip
  2. Extract the zip file.
  3. Right-click on each of the extracted .ttf files and select "Install" from the context menu.

Next, we need to set SpaceMono NF as our default font. Open the Windows Terminal and click on the down arrow next to the "+" icon and select "Settings". Scroll down to the "Global" section, find the "fontFace" setting, and change its value to "SpaceMono NF".

Notepad++ Integration

If you're a fan of Notepad++, you can set up a command-line alias to open files in it. To do this:

  1. Create a new file named npp.bat in your Windows root directory (usually C:\Windows).
  2. Open npp.bat in a text editor and add the following line: "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" %*, make sure that the path of notepad++.exe corresponds accordingly
  3. Save and close the file.

Now you can use in console npp file.txt to open file.txt in Notepad++.

Oh My Posh Theme

Oh My Posh provides a host of themes that you can use to customize your terminal prompt. You can view all available themes by running Get-PoshThemes.

For this guide, we'll be using Kudostoy0u's pwsh10k additional theme.

Download the theme from github.com/Kudostoy0u/pwsh10k and save it as pwsh10k.omp.json in your user home directory (C:\Users\[your username]).

Configuring PowerShell profile

Last step is to create a file with the configuration for your profile for all the goodies we just gather. To doing so:

  1. Create a new file named Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 in your PowerShell user profile directory (C:\Users\[your username]\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\).
  2. Add the following contents to Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1:
oh-my-posh --init --shell pwsh --config ~/pwsh10k.omp.json | Invoke-Expression
neofetch
function IsVirtualTerminalProcessingEnabled {
	$MethodDefinitions = @'
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle(int nStdHandle);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern bool GetConsoleMode(IntPtr hConsoleHandle, out uint lpMode);
'@
	$Kernel32 = Add-Type -MemberDefinition $MethodDefinitions -Name 'Kernel32' -Namespace 'Win32' -PassThru
	$hConsoleHandle = $Kernel32::GetStdHandle(-11) # STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE
	$mode = 0
	$Kernel32::GetConsoleMode($hConsoleHandle, [ref]$mode) >$null
	if ($mode -band 0x0004) { # 0x0004 ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING
		return $true
	}
	return $false
}

function CanUsePredictionSource {
	return (! [System.Console]::IsOutputRedirected) -and (IsVirtualTerminalProcessingEnabled)
}

if (CanUsePredictionSource){ 
  Import-Module -Name Terminal-Icons
  Import-Module PSReadLine
  Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle ListView -PredictionSource History -HistoryNoDuplicates
}

The function definition IsVirtualTerminalProcessingEnabled, is a work around for avoiding the warning of PSReadLine and predictionsource.

This sets up the pwsh10k theme and displays a system information banner when you open PowerShell. It also adds some additional functionality to PowerShell's command line interface.

Conclusion

That's it! You should now have a customized terminal and PowerShell experience. If you run into any issues or want to learn more about Oh My Posh, Terminal-Icons, or PowerShell, check out their respective documentation on GitHub.

Sources:

Adenda

Some of you asked for my personal terminal visualisation settings, here you have. This is the settings.json file of my own terminal. Just make sure your profiles, i.e., the different consoles you are using, have the correct path.

settings.json 
{
    "$help": "https://aka.ms/terminal-documentation",
    "$schema": "https://aka.ms/terminal-profiles-schema",
    "actions": 
    [
        {
            "command": 
            {
                "action": "copy",
                "singleLine": false
            },
            "keys": "ctrl+c"
        },
        {
            "command": "paste",
            "keys": "ctrl+v"
        },
        {
            "command": "find",
            "keys": "ctrl+shift+f"
        },
        {
            "command": 
            {
                "action": "splitPane",
                "split": "auto",
                "splitMode": "duplicate"
            },
            "keys": "alt+shift+d"
        }
    ],
    "copyFormatting": "none",
    "copyOnSelect": true,
    "defaultProfile": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
    "disableAnimations": false,
    "language": "en-US",
    "profiles": 
    {
        "defaults": 
        {
            "font": 
            {
                "face": "Hack Nerd Font Mono"
            },
            "opacity": 56,
            "useAcrylic": true,
            "useAtlasEngine": false
        },
        "list": 
        [
            {
                "commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe",
                "guid": "{61c54bbd-c2c6-5271-96e7-009a87ff44bf}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Windows PowerShell"
            },
            {
                "commandline": "%SystemRoot%\\System32\\cmd.exe",
                "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "S\u00edmbolo del sistema"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{17bf3de4-5353-5709-bcf9-835bd952a95e}",
                "hidden": true,
                "name": "Ubuntu-22.04",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{b453ae62-4e3d-5e58-b989-0a998ec441b8}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Azure Cloud Shell",
                "source": "Windows.Terminal.Azure"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{d7b20cea-47a9-518c-95a4-c8bd91e2e1c6}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS",
                "source": "CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu22.04LTS_79rhkp1fndgsc"
            },
            {
                "guid": "{2ece5bfe-50ed-5f3a-ab87-5cd4baafed2b}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "Git Bash",
                "source": "Git"
            }
        ]
    },
    "schemes": 
    [
        {
            "background": "#0C0C0C",
            "black": "#0C0C0C",
            "blue": "#0037DA",
            "brightBlack": "#767676",
            "brightBlue": "#3B78FF",
            "brightCyan": "#61D6D6",
            "brightGreen": "#16C60C",
            "brightPurple": "#B4009E",
            "brightRed": "#E74856",
            "brightWhite": "#F2F2F2",
            "brightYellow": "#F9F1A5",
            "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
            "cyan": "#3A96DD",
            "foreground": "#CCCCCC",
            "green": "#13A10E",
            "name": "Campbell",
            "purple": "#881798",
            "red": "#C50F1F",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#CCCCCC",
            "yellow": "#C19C00"
        },
        {
            "background": "#012456",
            "black": "#0C0C0C",
            "blue": "#0037DA",
            "brightBlack": "#767676",
            "brightBlue": "#3B78FF",
            "brightCyan": "#61D6D6",
            "brightGreen": "#16C60C",
            "brightPurple": "#B4009E",
            "brightRed": "#E74856",
            "brightWhite": "#F2F2F2",
            "brightYellow": "#F9F1A5",
            "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
            "cyan": "#3A96DD",
            "foreground": "#CCCCCC",
            "green": "#13A10E",
            "name": "Campbell Powershell",
            "purple": "#881798",
            "red": "#C50F1F",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#CCCCCC",
            "yellow": "#C19C00"
        },
        {
            "background": "#282C34",
            "black": "#282C34",
            "blue": "#61AFEF",
            "brightBlack": "#5A6374",
            "brightBlue": "#61AFEF",
            "brightCyan": "#56B6C2",
            "brightGreen": "#98C379",
            "brightPurple": "#C678DD",
            "brightRed": "#E06C75",
            "brightWhite": "#DCDFE4",
            "brightYellow": "#E5C07B",
            "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
            "cyan": "#56B6C2",
            "foreground": "#DCDFE4",
            "green": "#98C379",
            "name": "One Half Dark",
            "purple": "#C678DD",
            "red": "#E06C75",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#DCDFE4",
            "yellow": "#E5C07B"
        },
        {
            "background": "#FAFAFA",
            "black": "#383A42",
            "blue": "#0184BC",
            "brightBlack": "#4F525D",
            "brightBlue": "#61AFEF",
            "brightCyan": "#56B5C1",
            "brightGreen": "#98C379",
            "brightPurple": "#C577DD",
            "brightRed": "#DF6C75",
            "brightWhite": "#FFFFFF",
            "brightYellow": "#E4C07A",
            "cursorColor": "#4F525D",
            "cyan": "#0997B3",
            "foreground": "#383A42",
            "green": "#50A14F",
            "name": "One Half Light",
            "purple": "#A626A4",
            "red": "#E45649",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#FAFAFA",
            "yellow": "#C18301"
        },
        {
            "background": "#002B36",
            "black": "#002B36",
            "blue": "#268BD2",
            "brightBlack": "#073642",
            "brightBlue": "#839496",
            "brightCyan": "#93A1A1",
            "brightGreen": "#586E75",
            "brightPurple": "#6C71C4",
            "brightRed": "#CB4B16",
            "brightWhite": "#FDF6E3",
            "brightYellow": "#657B83",
            "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
            "cyan": "#2AA198",
            "foreground": "#839496",
            "green": "#859900",
            "name": "Solarized Dark",
            "purple": "#D33682",
            "red": "#DC322F",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#EEE8D5",
            "yellow": "#B58900"
        },
        {
            "background": "#FDF6E3",
            "black": "#002B36",
            "blue": "#268BD2",
            "brightBlack": "#073642",
            "brightBlue": "#839496",
            "brightCyan": "#93A1A1",
            "brightGreen": "#586E75",
            "brightPurple": "#6C71C4",
            "brightRed": "#CB4B16",
            "brightWhite": "#FDF6E3",
            "brightYellow": "#657B83",
            "cursorColor": "#002B36",
            "cyan": "#2AA198",
            "foreground": "#657B83",
            "green": "#859900",
            "name": "Solarized Light",
            "purple": "#D33682",
            "red": "#DC322F",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#EEE8D5",
            "yellow": "#B58900"
        },
        {
            "background": "#000000",
            "black": "#000000",
            "blue": "#3465A4",
            "brightBlack": "#555753",
            "brightBlue": "#729FCF",
            "brightCyan": "#34E2E2",
            "brightGreen": "#8AE234",
            "brightPurple": "#AD7FA8",
            "brightRed": "#EF2929",
            "brightWhite": "#EEEEEC",
            "brightYellow": "#FCE94F",
            "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
            "cyan": "#06989A",
            "foreground": "#D3D7CF",
            "green": "#4E9A06",
            "name": "Tango Dark",
            "purple": "#75507B",
            "red": "#CC0000",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#D3D7CF",
            "yellow": "#C4A000"
        },
        {
            "background": "#FFFFFF",
            "black": "#000000",
            "blue": "#3465A4",
            "brightBlack": "#555753",
            "brightBlue": "#729FCF",
            "brightCyan": "#34E2E2",
            "brightGreen": "#8AE234",
            "brightPurple": "#AD7FA8",
            "brightRed": "#EF2929",
            "brightWhite": "#EEEEEC",
            "brightYellow": "#FCE94F",
            "cursorColor": "#000000",
            "cyan": "#06989A",
            "foreground": "#555753",
            "green": "#4E9A06",
            "name": "Tango Light",
            "purple": "#75507B",
            "red": "#CC0000",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#D3D7CF",
            "yellow": "#C4A000"
        },
        {
            "background": "#300A24",
            "black": "#171421",
            "blue": "#0037DA",
            "brightBlack": "#767676",
            "brightBlue": "#08458F",
            "brightCyan": "#2C9FB3",
            "brightGreen": "#26A269",
            "brightPurple": "#A347BA",
            "brightRed": "#C01C28",
            "brightWhite": "#F2F2F2",
            "brightYellow": "#A2734C",
            "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
            "cyan": "#3A96DD",
            "foreground": "#FFFFFF",
            "green": "#26A269",
            "name": "Ubuntu-22.04-ColorScheme",
            "purple": "#881798",
            "red": "#C21A23",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#CCCCCC",
            "yellow": "#A2734C"
        },
        {
            "background": "#000000",
            "black": "#000000",
            "blue": "#000080",
            "brightBlack": "#808080",
            "brightBlue": "#0000FF",
            "brightCyan": "#00FFFF",
            "brightGreen": "#00FF00",
            "brightPurple": "#FF00FF",
            "brightRed": "#FF0000",
            "brightWhite": "#FFFFFF",
            "brightYellow": "#FFFF00",
            "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
            "cyan": "#008080",
            "foreground": "#C0C0C0",
            "green": "#008000",
            "name": "Vintage",
            "purple": "#800080",
            "red": "#800000",
            "selectionBackground": "#FFFFFF",
            "white": "#C0C0C0",
            "yellow": "#808000"
        }
    ],
    "showTabsInTitlebar": true,
    "themes": [],
    "useAcrylicInTabRow": true
}
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