Introduction#
Over time, I have collected or installed a lot of tools and utilities that make my life in the terminal a little easier. Some help me visualize information on the terminal, others just simply make life easier by letting me achieve my goal quicker. Whatever it is, most of these I could not live without anymore. So here is a list of utilities I use and love.
Fish#
Fish, the friendly shell. This has to come first. For most of the tools after this, I created little fish functions to execute them as I want, and I will include them in their respective sections as well.
Fish allows for easy scripting of complex functions. It is extremely functional right out of the box. It has an abbreviation system that lets you quickly and intuitively shorten often used commands so you don’t have to type them out each and every time. It even has a web-based configuration utility that you can use to graphically configure it to your liking.
But for me, the ease with which you can write your own functions and extend its functionality if king here.
Homepage: Fish
eza#
eza is a modern, maintained replacement for the venerable file-listing command-line program ls that ships with Unix and Linux operating systems, giving it more features and better defaults. It uses colours to distinguish file types and metadata. It knows about symlinks, extended attributes, and Git. And it’s small, fast, and just one single binary.
By deliberately making some decisions differently, eza attempts to be a more featureful, more user-friendly version of ls.
The way I use it in fish:
function ls -d 'eza instead of ls'
if type --quiet eza && test "$argv[1]" != "-ltr"
eza --header --group-directories-first --git --icons=auto $argv
else
command ls --color=always $argv
end
end
function ll
if command -sq eza
ls -laa -g $argv
else
command ls -la $argv
end
end
function l
ls $argv
end
function lt
if command -sq eza
ls -laa -snew -g $argv;
else
command ls -ltr $argv;
end
end
Homepage: eza
ripgrep#
Ripgrep is a replacement for the standard grep command. It can search recursively, respects .gitignore and skips hidden files or directories and binary files.
# Defined in - @ line 1
#
# Let's check if we have ripgrep installed and if so
# we use it, otherwise use standard grep with options
function grep
if command -sq rg
rg $argv;
else
command grep -n --color $argv;
end
end
Homepage: Ripgrep
bat#
Bat is a, as the homepage tell you themselves, a “cat clone with wings”. It supports syntax highlighting, it shows linenumbers, it has git integration, it shows non-printable characters and it automatically paginates the output. This makes it a lot more usable and readable than the regular cat, which just outputs flat ascii.
function cat -d 'bat instead of cat'
if type --quiet bat
bat $argv
else
command cat $argv
end
end
Homepage: Bat
zoxide#
Zoxide is a smarter cd command and my new best friend. It takes inspiration from z and autojump and the one cool thing it does is that it keeps a database of the directories you visit. You can then change directory by just typing the directory or part thereof, and it jumps right in no matter how deep or your current location. Also a simple cd - jumps you back to where you came from, making switching back and forth really quick. I don’t think I can live without this little utility anymore.
function cd -d 'Using zoxide as replacement for cd, if it exists'
if command -sq zoxide
z $argv
else
command cd $argv
end
end
Homepage: zoxide
advcp & advmv#
Advanced Copy is a mod for the GNU cp and GNU mv tools which adds a progress bar and provides some info on what’s going on. There is no real difference to the standard cp and mv commands, but I do very much appreciate that it gives feedback on progress. Why isn’t this included by default?
In my fish config:
function cp
if command -sq advcp
advcp -g $argv
else
command cp $argv
end
end
(same for mv)
Homepage: advcp/mv
stow#
From their homepage:
GNU Stow is a symlink farm manager which takes distinct packages of software and/or data located in separate directories on the filesystem, and makes them appear to be installed in the same place. For example, /usr/local/bin could contain symlinks to files within /usr/local/stow/emacs/bin, /usr/local/stow/perl/bin etc., and likewise recursively for any other subdirectories such as …/share, …/man, and so on.
I like and use it to manage my dotfiles in a simple, intuitive way. I actually wrote an article about it, which you can read here.
# Function for stow, to ingore .directory files and use 'dotfiles' special handling functionality
#
function dotf -d "Use stow with extra parameters"
if command -sq stow
stow -d ~/.dotfiles/ $argv --ignore=.directory --ignore=README.md --dotfiles
else
echo "Stow not installed. Please install before using."
end
end
Homepage: GNU stow
fastfetch#
Admit it, everybody loves neofetch. However, neofetch is no longer maintained and fastfetch does the same thing. Except it is written in C and as such it is blistering fast. It is also highly configurabla, just like its cousin.
function ff -d 'fastfetch shortcut'
if type --quiet fastfetch
if test -n "$ALACRITTY_WINDOW_ID"
fastfetch -l opensuse -c examples/6.jsonc $argv
else
fastfetch -l ~/ansible/files/twgrey.png --logo-type iterm --logo-padding-top 2 --logo-width 45 -c examples/6.jsonc $argv
end
else
command neofetch $argv
end
end
I do a check on alacritty there, as it does not seem to like me using an image file for the distro logo. So I revert to a regular ASCII logo if it detects alacritty as the terminal emulator.
Homepage: fastfetch
neovim#
Neovim is a hyperextensible vim-based editor. It is a drop-in for replacement for vim and is customizable to the extreme. I use it in combination with lazyvim, which is a plugin manager and allows for easy configuration and customization.
function vi --wraps="neovim to vi"
if command -sq nvim
nvim $argv
else
command vi $argv
end
end