Oh my zsh!!

Since a few months I am using zsh for my day-to-day terminal work instead of bash. If you haven’t heard of zsh before, be sure to check it out. So, what makes it different from bash or any other shell your used to?

It is very similar to bash what makes it very easy to learn. There is nothing to learn when you’re used to bash because everything works exactly like bash but you get a lot of extra’s.
It has really cool autocomplete functionality.
- It can present suggestions in a menu that you can navigate in with your arrow keys
- It can complete command options (typing ls -<tab> gives you possible actions and it’s meaning).
- It can complete hosts from your hosts file when using network commands or ssh’s known_hosts file when using ssh, …
Typo correction
How many times have you typed small errors like ssj remote_server instead of ssh remote_server? When that happens with zsh I get a question like zsh: correct 'ssj' to 'ssh' [nyae]? Very cool indeed.
Intelligent history
- Shared history across sessions: How many times have you lost that super complex command from your history because you had more than one terminal window open? No more with zsh!
- prefix filtered history: No more browsing through your complete history to find that complex command you can’t remember completely. Type the start of a command and then use your up arrow key to navigate through your filtered history containing only commands starting with the part you already typed.
Oh-my-zsh: This is an awesome extension for zsh. It features extra functions and auto-complete helpers, themes and a configurable plugin system. You can find it here. You can find my fork with my custom theme and a plugin for iTerm here. You should try it, it really makes switching to zsh worth it.