Linux Login

Some handy scripts for Bash shell customization.

##Features:

• colored terminal prompts
• useful aliases
• sample .vimrc
• bonus util functions

##Installation:

1. Clone the repository
2. Make sure all .sh files have execute permissions set
3. Add the following lines to your .bashrc

source [path/to/repo/]linux-login/login.sh  #Add everything in this repo to your 
                                            #environment
[prompt-command]                            #Set a customized PS1

See Prompts below for more information about the provided prompts.

4. (Optional) copy all the files in dotfiles/ to ~ if you would like to use some of my config files.

##Prompts

This repository now includes a Python script, prompt/prompt.py. This makes it easy to format a Bash prompt with colors.

To make it even easier, the function setPrompt was added to simplify the Bash syntax

###Basic Usage

The basic usage for prompt.py is as follows:

PS1=$(prompt.py [Format String] [color1 [color2 [color3 ...]]])

setPrompt makes this even nicer:

setPrompt [Format String] [color1 [color2 [color3 ...]]]

###Format Strings A format string is any text with some special character sequences that will be used for substituting bash variables like \u (username) or \w (current working directory), as well as for setting colors.

To make a simple prompt in the default color (like this: user@host ~/path/to/current/dir $>), you would do something like this:

setPrompt ':user:@:host: :cwd: :sigil:>'

Current list of variables (subject to change):

Variable	Bash Equivalent	Description
:user:	\u	username
:host:	\h	shortened hostname (computer name)
:hostname:	\H	full hostname (computer name)
:cwd:	\w	current working directory
:cwdbase:	\W	basename of CWD
:sigil:	$	$ for user, # for root
:jobs:	\j	number of background jobs
:tty:	\l	basename of terminal device name
:shell : (without the space)	\s	name of shell
:time24:	\t	24 hour time, HH:MM:SS
:time12:	\T	12 hour time, HH:MM:SS
:time:	@	12 hour time with AM/PM
:version:	\v	Bash version number
:release:	\V	Bash release number
:history:	\!	history number
:command:	\#	command number

####Color

You can also color your prompt. |0| marks the default color, |1| marks color1, |2| marks color2, etc. if |0| is not specified at the end, prompt.py will add it to prevent the color from bleeding onto any text you type after it.

For example, a three color prompt might be specified like this:

setPrompt '|1|:user:|0|@|2|:host: |3|:cwd: :sigil:>' red green blue

This would print the username in blue, the @ in the default color, the hostname in green, and the current working directory and sigil in blue.

Colors can be one of the default 8 colors (red green blue cyan yellow magenta black white) or a number from 0 to 255 to use 256 color mode. all others will be ignored. To see a list of all colors, type list_colors

bold and underline can be specified for the basic 8 colors with a semicolon in between.

e.g.:

setPrompt '|1|:sigil:>' 'bold;red'

Pre-Made Prompts

I made a few prompts. These can be used in a bashrc directly:

Prompt Command	Args
anglePrompt	color1 color2 color3
colorPrompt	color
triColorPrompt	color1 color2 color3
lispPrompt	color1 color2
bracketPrompt	color1 color2 color3

Some of these were inspired by this page

Adding Bash Commands to the Prompt

If you specify a command inside $(), it will be used in the PS1 unaltered.

e.g.:

setPrompt ':user:@:host: $(date +%s) :cwd:>'

(displays a Unix timestamp of the current time in the prompt)

Error Handling

Since this command is designed to be used in a prompt, all error handling is done silently. If the user enters an invalid color, the |#| for that number will be replaced by an empty string.

If the user specifies too few colors, subsequent colors will not be replaced. for example:

setPrompt '|1|Hello |2|World` blue

Will return Hello |2|World in blue.

A similar thing happens for variable substitution. non-variables between colons will be ignored.

e.g.: setPrompt ':user:@:host: :invalid: > would become something like ptrgags@ubuntu :invalid: >

Aliases

I included a number of useful aliases in this project. It is by no means an exhaustive list of aliases, but it's a nice set for getting started. See source/aliases.sh for the full list.

Bonus Features

Status Code Smiley

For one of the prompts, I made a status code smiley that takes the output of the last command and displays either a green smiley for success or a frown + error code for failure. The smiley idea was inspired by #1 on this page. It can be embedded in the prompt:

setPrompt ':user:@:host: :cwd: $(smiley)>'

or it can be run by itself:

smiley

color_echo

You can also print in color with the underlying Python code for coloring the prompt:

color_echo <color> <text>

Colors are the same as for setPrompt.