Arch Linux

max_sipos · 2005-07-16 18:56:28

I just saw the poll about your favourite shell. I've always used bash and with little extra configuration.

However, I remembered that a few years ago a friend of mine was showing me some neat functions he had in his shell (and I think it was Zsh, but I could be wrong). For instance he could start typing tar and then, if he had forgotten some obscure flag he would get a sort of a mini refererence page popup below, like autocompletion in bash (with <tab><tab>). Was this zsh? How do you do this?

I've found quite a bit of documentation on zsh online, however I don't feel like spending the day customizing a shell. I've found a few premade .zsh scripts online but most of them were 1000+ lines monstrosities. So, how about zsh veterans share some good tips they have in their .zshenv?

phrakture · 2005-07-16 18:57:15

pacman -S bash-completion

will give you the same thing under bash

max_sipos · 2005-07-16 20:07:41

Thanks, I didn't know about that.

I've tried it out, the trick is to run . /etc/bash_completion

It seems nice, however it's a bit slow (terminals take a few seconds to become usable) which is not surprising taking into account that bash_completion is a huge bash script. I wonder if zsh's completion (however you actually activate it) is faster?

It would also be neat if the output was more verbose, where possible. That is, for programs with sufficiently small number of arguments, to actually explain what those flags do...
for instance like here
http://grml.org/screenshots/cdrec.png

max_sipos · 2005-07-16 21:03:08

OK, I've got it, at last.

you have to type:
autoload -U compinstall

and then go through the configuration menu and save your configuration to ~/.zshenv
Works great and the output is much better than bash-completion (IMHO). It also doesn't slow down the terminal opening.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-07-16 18:56:28

Zsh

#2 2005-07-16 18:57:15

Re: Zsh

#3 2005-07-16 20:07:41

Re: Zsh

#4 2005-07-16 21:03:08

Re: Zsh

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