fzf-tab

Replace zsh's default completion selection menu with fzf!

Table of Contents

• fzf-tab
• Install
  • Manual
  • Antigen
  • Zinit
  • Oh-My-Zsh
  • Prezto
• Usage
  • Configure
  • Tmux
  • Binary module
• Difference from other plugins
• Compatibility with other plugins
• Related projects

Install

Important

1. make sure fzf is installed
2. fzf-tab needs to be loaded after compinit, but before plugins which will wrap widgets, such as zsh-autosuggestions or fast-syntax-highlighting
3. Completions should be configured before compinit, as stated in the zsh-completions manual installation guide.

Manual

First, clone this repository.

git clone https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab ~/somewhere

Then add the following line to your ~/.zshrc.

autoload -U compinit; compinit
source ~/somewhere/fzf-tab.plugin.zsh

Antigen

antigen bundle Aloxaf/fzf-tab

Zinit

zinit light Aloxaf/fzf-tab

Oh-My-Zsh

Clone this repository to your custom directory and then add fzf-tab to your plugin list.

git clone https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/fzf-tab

Prezto

Clone this repository to your contrib directory and then add fzf-tab to your module list in .zpreztorc.

git clone https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab $ZPREZTODIR/contrib/fzf-tab

Usage

Just press Tab as usual~

Available keybindings:

• Ctrl+Space: select multiple results, can be configured by fzf-bindings tag

• F1/F2: switch between groups, can be configured by switch-group tag

• /: trigger continuous completion (useful when completing a deep path), can be configured by continuous-trigger tag

Available commands:

• disable-fzf-tab: disable fzf-tab and fallback to compsys

• enable-fzf-tab: enable fzf-tab

• toggle-fzf-tab: toggle the state of fzf-tab. This is also a zle widget.

Configure

A common configuration is:

# disable sort when completing `git checkout`
zstyle ':completion:*:git-checkout:*' sort false
# set descriptions format to enable group support
# NOTE: don't use escape sequences (like '%F{red}%d%f') here, fzf-tab will ignore them
zstyle ':completion:*:descriptions' format '[%d]'
# set list-colors to enable filename colorizing
zstyle ':completion:*' list-colors ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}
# force zsh not to show completion menu, which allows fzf-tab to capture the unambiguous prefix
zstyle ':completion:*' menu no
# preview directory's content with eza when completing cd
zstyle ':fzf-tab:complete:cd:*' fzf-preview 'eza -1 --color=always $realpath'
# custom fzf flags
# NOTE: fzf-tab does not follow FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS by default
zstyle ':fzf-tab:*' fzf-flags --color=fg:1,fg+:2 --bind=tab:accept
# To make fzf-tab follow FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS.
# NOTE: This may lead to unexpected behavior since some flags break this plugin. See Aloxaf/fzf-tab#455.
zstyle ':fzf-tab:*' use-fzf-default-opts yes
# switch group using `<` and `>`
zstyle ':fzf-tab:*' switch-group '<' '>'

Tmux

If you're using tmux >= 3.2, we provide a script ftb-tmux-popup to make full use of it's "popup" feature.

zstyle ':fzf-tab:*' fzf-command ftb-tmux-popup

BTW, you can also use this script outside the fzf-tab.

ls | ftb-tmux-popup

For more information, please see Wiki#Configuration.

Binary module

By default, fzf-tab uses zsh-ls-colors to parse and apply ZLS_COLORS if you have set the list-colors tag.

However, it is a pure zsh script and is slow if you have too many files to colorize. fzf-tab is shipped with a binary module to speed up this process. You can build it with build-fzf-tab-module, then it will be enabled automatically.

Difference from other plugins

fzf-tab doesn't do "complete", it just shows you the results of the default completion system.

So it works EVERYWHERE (variables, function names, directory stack, in-word completion, etc.). And most of your configuration for default completion system is still valid.

Compatibility with other plugins

Some plugins may also bind "^I" to their custom widget, like fzf/shell/completion.zsh or ohmyzsh/lib/completion.zsh.

By default, fzf-tab will call the widget previously bound to "^I" to get the completion list. So there is no problem in most cases, unless fzf-tab is initialized before a plugin which doesn't handle the previous binding properly.

So if you find your fzf-tab doesn't work properly, please make sure it is the last plugin to bind "^I" (If you don't know what I mean, just put it to the end of your plugin list).

Related projects

• https://github.com/lincheney/fzf-tab-completion (fzf tab completion for zsh, bash and GNU readline apps)