Zinit Console

A consolette for Zinit – based on the zsh/zcurses Zshell module and the ZUI library – it allows the user to:

• view the currently loaded plugins in a colorful list, in one of 3 different display modes,
• unload and load plugins,
• delete the plugins and snippets from the disk.

Usage

Start the consolette by Ctrl-O Ctrl-J keyboard shortcut, or by running ziconsole function in the shell. Then, in the consolette:

Key(s)	Description
Ctrl-U,Ctrl-D	Half page up; half page down
Ctrl-P,Ctrl-N	Previous line, centered; next line, centered
Ctrl-L	Redraw of whole display
[, ]	Jump to next and previous section (e.g.: next plugin or snippet)
g, G	Jump to beginning and end of whole interface
<,> or {,}	Horizontal scroll (i.e.: left or right)
/	Show incremental search
F1	Jump to result (in incremental search) and back
Esc	Exit incremental search, clearing query
Ctrl-W	Delete whole word (in incremental search)
Ctrl-K	Delete whole line (in incremental search)

Screencast

Installation

Load like any other normal plugin, e.g.:, with use of Turbo mode and the for-syntax:

zinit wait lucid for zinit-zsh/zinit-console

The plugin needs zsh/curses Zsh module. You can check if it's available to your Zsh by executing:

zmodload zsh/curses

If the call will return an error, then the zsh/curses module isn't available.

Solving The Lack Of zsh/curses Module With Zinit

You can build the zsh/curses-equipped Zshell with Zinit by the following command:

zinit ice id-as"zsh" atclone"./.preconfig
        CFLAGS='-I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -g -O2 -Wall' \
        LDFLAGS='-L/usr/lib -L/usr/local/lib' ./configure --prefix='$ZPFX'" \
    atpull"%atclone" run-atpull make"install" pick"/dev/null"
zinit load zsh-users/zsh

The command will build a custom zsh and install it under $ZPFX (~/.zinit/polaris by default). The path $ZPFX/bin is already added to $PATH by Zinit at first position, so starting zsh will run the new Zshell.

When on Gentoo, and possibly other systems, the zsh can still not have the ncurses library linked. To address this, utilize the z-a-patch-dl annex and automatically patch the source first:

zinit light zinit-zsh/z-a-patch-dl
zinit ice id-as"zsh" atclone"./.preconfig
        CFLAGS='-I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -g -O2 -Wall' \
        LDFLAGS='-L/usr/lib -L/usr/local/lib' ./configure --prefix='$ZPFX'" \
    dl"https://gist.githubusercontent.com/psprint/2373494c71cb6d1529344a2ed1a64b03/raw -> curses.patch" \
    patch'curses.patch' atpull"%atclone" reset \
    run-atpull make"install" pick"/dev/null"
zinit load zsh-users/zsh

Then, to update, rebuild and reinstall the zsh, you can do zinit update zsh. The binary can be safely copied over /bin/zsh as it has paths to all needed directories built-in.