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Aditya Deshlahara
Aditya Deshlahara

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How to increase productivity at work with a pretty Windows Terminal and smart Powerline tools

windows terminal

Windows Terminal is the latest software update for your boring and ugly looking command-line tools like cmd, powershell and WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

Top Features:

  • Google Chrome like multi-tabs suppport
  • GPU acceleration (for faster text rendering)
  • Split panes support(eg: 4 cmd tabs at once)
  • Custom themes and styling (you dress it like you want)
  • Open Source project (you too can contribute to make it better)

Microsoft’s intervention in the open-source community has opened up new doors for developers like us and has brought in more flexibility too.

Pre-requisites

// Windows Users, downoad file with the extension .msi
PowerShell-X.X.X-win-x64.msi
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STEPS TO INSTALL:
1. Download the .zip file from the releases page
2. Right-click on the font file and install it
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Installation Steps - Guide

  1. Open PowerShell Core prompt
  2. Install Posh-Git using this command:
Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser
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Posh-Git solves our age-old problem for checking git status or git branch information and provides interesting features :

Tab completion intellisense (type-in the command and it gives you auto-completion just by hitting Tab button)

  • Git commands
  • Parameters /git flags
  • Branch names
  1. Install Oh-My-Posh using this command:


Install-Module oh-my-posh -Scope CurrentUser

Oh-My-Posh adds powerful theming support and other capabilities to Powershell for making a fluid git experience possible

NOTE: While running the above commands, you may get an option to install NuGet. So go ahead and install it by pressing [Y] key

  • (Optional) Install PSReadline if you are running PowerShell Core
  • Customize the PowerShell prompt with custom styles
notepad $PROFILE
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  • Add the following lines to the notepad file and save it using Ctrl + S (Windows)
Import-Module posh-git
Import-Module oh-my-posh
Set-Theme Paradox
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  • Open Windows Terminal settings config file
  • Open Windows Terminal
  • Ctrl + , (or manually go to settings like below)

terminal settings

  • Set a nice default font-family for your Windows Terminal
  1. Find "defaults" object under "profiles" object
  2. Paste the following line under "defaults" object
"defaults":
   {
     // Put settings here that you want to apply to all profiles.
     "fontFace": "Cascadia Code PL",
   },
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Bingo!

Now your productivity will boost up while you work on your dreams…

Top comments (1)

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saurabhsolanke profile image
Saurabh Solanke

Noice