DEV Community

Cover image for How to make your terminal look cool 😎
Bruno
Bruno

Posted on

How to make your terminal look cool 😎

#beginners #tutorial #productivity #terminal

Have you ever wondered if you could turn your boring terminal into a cool one to make it even more exciting and make you feel more productive perhaps? Turns out it there are multiple solutions for this and they are really easy to implement! Follow along and you will be able to configure your terminal the way you want by the end of this article.

How do you come about configuring the terminal?

First, make sure you have Homebrew installed, in order to clone and install the things you need from GitHub.

Install/update Homebrew 



/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

If you are using wget instead of curl, run the following command:



/bin/bash -c "$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

If you already have Homebrew installed, I recommend you update it.



brew update
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Homebrew is now installed. Great!

Install Oh my Zsh

Run the following commmand in order to install Oh my Zsh, which is the first "styled" version of your terminal.



sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

If you are using wget instead of curl, run the following command:



sh -c "$(wget https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh -O -)"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Install the Powerlevel10k theme

In order to clone the theme, run the following command:



git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Then, create a ~/.zshrc file on a folder of your choice. I recommend in your home/desktop folder. 



touch ~/.zshrc
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Then, configure the ~/.zshrc file to use the Powerlevel10k theme. Depending on what text editor you are using, the following commands apply for your circumstances. Pick the one you prefer to use.

For nano users:



nano ~/.zshrc
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

For vim users:



vim ~/.zshrc
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Apply the following changes to the "ZSH_THEME":



ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now save the changes you have made.
For Mac users:

  1. press esc + up arrow key
  2. press the X key
  3. press Y to save the changes
  4. exit the terminal and run the following command:


source ~/.zshrc
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

For Windows users:

  1. press ctrl + x key
  2. press Y key to save the changes
  3. hit enter
  4. exit the terminal and run the following command:


source ~/.zshrc
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Configure Powerlevel10k

The terminal will take you through the configuration of Powerlevel10k. If it does not prompt you to the following setup, run the following command:



p10k configure
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Make the choices you feel work best for you, but if you are unsure about some, Powerlevel10k will recommend you some to make it easier.

powerlevel10k configuration prompt

After going through all these steps, you should be able to have made your terminal look much cooler 👏😎

All the documentation for Homebrew, Oh my Zsh and Powerlevel10k can be accessed here:

Top comments (0)

Read next

nozibul_islam_113b1d5334f profile image

The Ultimate Guide to JavaScript Arrays: A Complete Method List (50 Topics)

Nozibul Islam -

hexfloor profile image

More storage for media : organize files using ChatGPT

hexfloor -

arindam_1729 profile image

9 Interesting Open Source Projects You Should Explore Right Now🥷🏻 🎉

Arindam Majumder -

jutionck profile image

Kubernetes: Install Tools

Jution Candra Kirana -