the commonplace notebook for eliana

awesome terminal

3 min read

TL;DR

  • Tools: Upgrade your default commands with modern replacements like fzf, bat, and zoxide.

  • Concepts: Master job control, brace expansion, and recursive globbing.

  • Scripts: Automate daily tasks with custom extraction and backup functions.

  • Configs: Supercharge your .zshrc with massive history retention and quality-of-life aliases.

Essential Terminal Tools

  • Homebrew: Use this package manager to install all the tools below on macOS.

  • fzf: A command-line fuzzy finder for instantly searching files, directories, and command history.

  • bat: A drop-in replacement for the cat command featuring syntax highlighting and Git integration.

  • ripgrep (rg): An incredibly fast search tool that respects your .gitignore files.

  • zoxide (z): A smarter cd command that learns your habits and remembers your most visited directories.

  • eza: A modern replacement for ls with colors, file icons, and git status.

Powerful Terminal Concepts

  • Job Control: Suspend a running foreground task with Ctrl+Z, resume it in the background with bg, and bring it back to the foreground with fg.

  • Command Substitution: Use $(command) to pass the output of one command as an argument to another (e.g., kill -9 $(pgrep python)).

  • Recursive Globbing: Use ** to search deeply through directories without the find command (e.g., ls **/*.jpg lists all JPEGs in all nested subfolders).

  • Brace Expansion: Generate arbitrary strings or folder structures quickly (e.g., mkdir -p project/{src,test,build,logs} creates four folders at once).

Super Helpful Scripts (Add to .zshrc)

Smart Archive Extractor

  • Detects the file extension and automatically uses the correct decompression tool.

Bash

extract() {
  if [ -f "$1" ] ; then
    case "$1" in
      *.tar.bz2)   tar xjf "$1"     ;;
      *.tar.gz)    tar xzf "$1"     ;;
      *.bz2)       bunzip2 "$1"     ;;
      *.rar)       unrar e "$1"     ;;
      *.gz)        gunzip "$1"      ;;
      *.tar)       tar xf "$1"      ;;
      *.tbz2)      tar xjf "$1"     ;;
      *.tgz)       tar xzf "$1"     ;;
      *.zip)       unzip "$1"       ;;
      *.Z)         uncompress "$1"  ;;
      *.7z)        7z x "$1"        ;;
      *)           echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via extract()" ;;
    esac
  else
    echo "'$1' is not a valid file"
  fi
}

Quick File Backup

  • Instantly creates a .bak copy of a file without typing the name twice.

Bash

mkbkp() {
  cp "$1" "$1.bak"
  echo "Created backup: $1.bak"
}

Quick Server

  • Starts a local HTTP server in your current directory on port 8000 for quick file sharing or testing.

Bash

serve() {
  python3 -m http.server 8000
}

Awesome Zsh Configs (.zshrc)

Massive & Shared History

  • Never lose a command again and sync history across all open terminal tabs immediately.
HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
HISTSIZE=100000
SAVEHIST=100000
setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY
setopt SHARE_HISTORY
setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS
setopt HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS

Directory Navigation

  • Type a folder name directly to enter it without using the cd command.
setopt AUTO_CD

Quality of Life Aliases

  • Shortcuts for faster navigation and modern tool integration.
alias ..="cd .."
alias ...="cd ../.."
alias ....="cd ../../.."
alias ls="eza --icons" # Requires eza installed
alias cat="bat"        # Requires bat installed
alias reload="source ~/.zshrc && echo 'Zsh config reloaded!'"
alias path="echo -e \${PATH//:/\\\\n}" # Prints PATH cleanly on separate lines

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