the ZSH .dotfiles

These are my extremely useful dotfiles for the zsh shell. (Dotfiles are hidden files, whose filenames start with a . dot. The dotfiles are sourced whenever you start a command line session. And these dotfiles are really useful, containing a lot of smart things, shortscuts and nice colors.)

These instructions can be applied to both the Terminal app or the iTerm app.

Step 1: install zsh as your default shell

option A: in macOS's Terminal app

• Start the Terminal app
• open the Preferences window,
• the General tab.
• There where it says "Shells open with:",
• select "Command (complete path)"
• and type: /bin/zsh

option B: in iTerm2 app

• Start the iTerm app
• open the Preferences window,
• go to the Profiles tab,
• select the Profile that you want to modify (or create a new Profile, and Set as Default)
• the General tab.
• Under the "Command" haeder,
• select "Command:"
• and type: /bin/zsh --login

From then on, every new Terminal or iTerm window or tab you'll open, will be starting the zsh shell. Hurray!

Step 2: install the dot files in your root folder

Then you'll need to install these dotfiles in your root folder in order to use them:

• Go to your root directory if you weren't there yet:
  • cd ~
• Download the dotfiles by:
  • curl -sL https://github.com/irlabs/zsh-dotfiles/raw/master/zsh_dotfiles.tar > zsh_dotfiles.tar
• Unpack and install the dotfiles:
  • tar -xzf zsh_dotfiles.tar

Then, from then on, every time you start a zsh shell, these dotfiles will be loaded and you can enjoy the nice colored prompt, handy shortcuts like l and ll and colored outputs for file lists, and, and ...

Step 3: Set up the Alt + . key

option A: in macOS's Terminal: Use the Alt key as Meta key

• In the Terminal app
• open the Preferences window,
• go to the Profiles tab.
• Select the Keyboard section.
• Make sure that all the profiles that you are using have:
• the checkbox Use Option as Meta key enabled.

option B: in the iTerm2 app

• In the iTerm app
• open the Preferences window,
• go to the Keys tab,
• click the + button to create a new Key Mapping
  • As Keyboard Shortcut set Alt + .
  • As Action choose Send Escape Sequence
  • As Esc+ set .

Usage of the Alt + . key

Once you changed these settings for the Alt key, (or specifically for Alt + . ) you can use Alt + . to repeat the last part of your previous commands. E.g. If you type

touch my_new_test_file.txt

(This command creates a new empty file, called my_new_test_file.txt or if that one already exists, updates the modification date.)

Then as the next command you might want to open it in the default app with open. To do this you can type

open 

, followed by Alt + .

The Alt + . will repeat the last part of the previous command, in this case the file name my_new_test_file.txt so your command becomes

open my_new_test_file.txt

Repeat Alt + . to browse through your whole history of commands.

Useful!