Customize Your Command Line Experience with Oh My Posh and lsd

Customize Your Command Line Experience with Oh My Posh and lsd

If you’ve ever wanted to make your command line experience more vibrant, informative, and productive, this guide is for you. Today, we’ll explore how to install and configure Oh My Posh and lsd to enhance different command line environments—all through Windows Terminal. Whether you’re using CMD, PowerShell, WSL Bash, or Azure Cloud Shell, we’ll help you achieve a cohesive, visually appealing terminal setup. Let’s dive in!

Why Customize Your Command Line?

A personalized command line can greatly improve your productivity. With the right tools, you can add color, icons, and useful information to your prompt, making navigation easier and giving you a sense of satisfaction every time you open the terminal. Oh My Posh offers a collection of stylish themes that bring your terminal to life, while lsd is an enhanced version of the ls command that adds icons and colors for easy file differentiation.

Tools We Will Use

• Oh My Posh: A prompt theme engine that makes your terminal beautiful.
• lsd: A modern replacement for ls, with support for icons and colors.
• Windows Terminal: A versatile terminal application that allows us to use multiple shells in one interface.
• Clink (for CMD): A tool that enhances CMD to enable better prompts and integration with Oh My Posh.

Setting Up CMD

CMD has always been functional but lacks the advanced capabilities you see in other shells. Oh My Posh and Clink bring CMD into the modern age with a colorful prompt and useful extras.

1. Install Clink: Start by installing Clink, which is required to enable Oh My Posh in CMD.
   • Visit the Clink GitHub page to download and install the latest release.
   • Clink significantly enhances CMD, allowing us to integrate advanced prompts.
2. Add Oh My Posh with a Lua Script:
   • Create a new file called oh-my-posh.lua in the Clink scripts directory. You can find this location by running clink info inside CMD.
   • Add the following line to the Lua file:

     load(io.popen('oh-my-posh init cmd'):read("*a"))()
     

   • This command integrates Oh My Posh into CMD and allows you to customize your prompt.
   • If you want to have a specific theme for your prompt, you could download it or create it and then reference it in the script:

      load(io.popen('oh-my-posh init cmd --config your-themes-path/your-theme-name.omp.json'):read("*a"))()
     

3. Download the Oh My Posh Executable:
   • Download Oh My Posh by running the following command in PowerShell or CMD:

      winget install "Oh My Posh"
     

4. Restart CMD: After creating the Lua script and adding the Oh My Posh executable, restart CMD to apply the new prompt.

5. Install lsd for CMD:
   • Download the lsd executable by using:

      winget install LSDeluxe
     

   • Create a batch file (ls.bat) that allows you to use lsd in CMD:

      @echo off
      %USERPROFILE%\lsd\lsd.exe %*
     

Setting Up PowerShell

PowerShell is already more advanced than CMD, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved further.

1. Install Oh My Posh:
   • Add Oh My Posh to your PowerShell profile by editing the profile file:

     notepad $PROFILE
     

   • Add the following to the profile:

        oh-my-posh --config C:/path/to/oh-my-posh-themes/theme-name.json init pwsh | Invoke-Expression
        Set-Alias ls lsd
     

Setting Up WSL Bash

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) brings the full power of a Linux environment to Windows. Here’s how to enhance WSL Bash with Oh My Posh and lsd:

1. Install Oh My Posh for Bash:
   • Download Oh My Posh:

      curl -s https://ohmyposh.dev/install.sh | bash -s
     

   • Edit .bashrc to add Oh My Posh:

     nano ~/.bashrc
     

     Add the following:

     eval "$(oh-my-posh init bash --config /mnt/C/path/to/oh-my-posh-themes/theme-name.json)"
     

     Observe how we took advantage of the file sharing between the Windows File System and the WSL

2. Install lsd for WSL:
   • Install cargo first:

      sudo apt update
      sudo apt install cargo     
     

     With Cargo installed, you can now install ‘lsd’

      cargo install lsd
     

     After installation, ensure that Cargo’s binary directory is in your system’s PATH so that you can run lsd from any terminal session. And also create the alis for lsd

      echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
      echo "alias ls='lsd'" >> ~/.bashrc
      source ~/.bashrc
     

   • Update your .bashrc to add an alias for ls to use lsd.

Setting Up Azure Cloud Shell

Azure Cloud Shell is a browser-based terminal that gives you access to a Linux environment. Follow the same instructions for the WSL but keep in mind that now, the theme file will be on Azure, so you need to change its reference in .bashrc

1. Install Oh My Posh for Azure Cloud Shell:
   • Follow the instructions for WSL
   • The line for .bashrc should be:

      eval "$(oh-my-posh init bash --config /home/USER/.cache/oh-my-posh/themes/THEME-NAME.omp.json)"
     

2. Install lsd in Azure Cloud Shell:
   • Since you don’t have sudo in Cloud Shell, you’ll need to manually extract lsd:

     wget https://github.com/Peltoche/lsd/releases/download/0.23.1/lsd_0.23.1_amd64.deb
     ar x lsd_0.23.1_amd64.deb
     unzstd data.tar.zst
     tar -xvf data.tar
     mv usr/bin/lsd ~/.local/bin/
     

Adding the Final Touch: Nerd Fonts

To fully enjoy Oh My Posh and lsd, you’ll need to install a Nerd Font that can display icons properly:

1. Install Nerd Fonts:
   • Visit Nerd Fonts and download a font like Cascadia Code PL or Fira Code.
   • Set the font face in Windows Terminal to the Nerd Font you installed, ensuring icons display correctly in CMD, PowerShell, WSL, and Azure Cloud Shell.

Conclusion

Customizing your command line can be transformative. With Oh My Posh, you get a sleek, informative prompt across all your shells. Meanwhile, lsd gives your file navigation a visual boost with colors and icons. Whether you’re using CMD, PowerShell, WSL Bash, or Azure Cloud Shell, these tools will help you build an attractive, functional terminal environment.

Try these customizations today, and make every terminal session a joy to work in!