How to make Powershell more friendly with Oh My Posh

Challenges

PowerShell is a command line tool on Windows operating systems. However, it has some limitations and problems that users often encounter. Below are some common PowerShell problems:

• Unattractive interface: By default, the PowerShell interface can look boring and unattractive, especially when compared to other modern command shells like Zsh on macOS and Linux
• Useful information: PowerShell by default does not provide much useful information on the command line such as the status of the Git repository, current branch name, or status of the Python environment
• Difficulty editing: PowerShell’s customization interface can be complex and requires users to have in-depth knowledge of configuration

When I switch from Linux/Mac with bash/zsh to Powershell, I feel very cramped for the above reasons. However, luckily after a while of searching, I found that Oh My Posh is similar to Oh My Zsh with many customizations, information and interface. However, the installation process is a bit confuse compared to Oh My Zsh, so I decided to Writing this article to guide and shorten the time to access this tool.

How to install Oh My Posh

On the homepage of Oh My Posh, many methods are listed, in this article I will only share how I installed it on my device.

1. Install Oh My Posh

To install, you run as Administrator

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; Invoke-Expression ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://ohmyposh.dev/install.ps1'))

At this point, you can run the following command to check the result:

oh-my-posh

If the result looks like below, it means your initial steps were successful.

oh-my-posh is a cross platform tool to render your prompt.
It can use the same configuration everywhere to offer a consistent
experience, regardless of where you are. For a detailed guide
on getting started, have a look at the docs at https://ohmyposh.dev

Usage:
  oh-my-posh [flags]
  oh-my-posh [command]

Available Commands:
  cache       Interact with the oh-my-posh cache
  completion  Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  config      Interact with the config
  debug       Print the prompt in debug mode
  disable     Disable a feature
  enable      Enable a feature
  font        Manage fonts
  get         Get a value from oh-my-posh
  help        Help about any command
  init        Initialize your shell and config
  notice      Print the upgrade notice when a new version is available.
  print       Print the prompt/context
  prompt      Set up the prompt for your shell (deprecated)
  toggle      Toggle a segment on/off
  upgrade     Upgrade when a new version is available.
  version     Print the version

2. Install theme

To install the theme for Oh My Posh, you can go to this link to preview and choose a theme to download. In this article, I chose the atomic theme.

mkdir ~/.oh-my-posh/
wget https://github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh/blob/main/themes/atomic.omp.json -OutFile ~/.oh-my-posh/atomic.omp.json

At this point, you can run the following command test apply new theme.

oh-my-posh init pwsh --config ~/.config/oh-my-posh/config.omp.json | Invoke-Expression

However, your current interface will have font errors, so you need to install a new font.

3. Install font for Oh My Posh

To install the font for Oh My Posh, run the following commands:

oh-my-posh font install

Then you choose the appropriate font. On the terminal, you need to open Settings -> Defaults -> Appearance -> Font Face to select the interface that displays the newly installed font.

4. Create profile for Powershell

In the current step, when you restart Powershell, all previous themes will disappear. To save the existing settings, we will need to create a profile file like .zshrc, .bashrc on Linux. To create a profile you need to do the following:

Grant permissions on powershell

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Create profile file using notepad

New-Item -Path $PROFILE -Type File -Force #Note that if you have already created a profile, you do not need to use this command
notepad $PROFILE

At this point, notepad opened, add the following commands, then save.

oh-my-posh init pwsh --config ~/.config/oh-my-posh/config.omp.json | Invoke-Expression

Now, when you restart Powershell, all your themes and configurations will remain the same.

5. Install PSReadLine to automatically suggest commands

To install PSReadLine, use the following command

Install-Module -Name PowerShellGet -Force
Exit
Install-Module PSReadLine -AllowPrerelease -Force
Import-Module PSReadLine
Set-PSReadLineOption -EditMode Windows
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionSource History
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle ListView
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle InlineView

Now, when you type a command, if that command has been used before, there will be blurred text below to prompt the command.

At this time, you will also need to update the profile file by adding the following files:

Import-Module PSReadLine
Set-PSReadLineOption -EditMode Windows
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionSource History
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle ListView
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle InlineView

Conclusion

In this article, I have guided you through installing Oh My Posh with some tips for effective use, hoping to help everyone have a better and more effective working experience. After this article, you can learn more about some ways to customize the interface, add commonly used information such as npm, docker, aws .