Useful Oh-My-Zsh plugins

May 3rd, 2015

Warning: This post is 9 years old. Some of this information may be out of date.

I've been using zsh as a replacement shell on both my Ubuntu laptop and my work Macbook for a while. Coupled with Robby Russell's excellent Oh-My-Zsh https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh and it's plethora of zsh plugins I now have a powerful shell with many new features.

Oh-My-Zsh describes itself as a 'community driven framework for managing your zsh configuration' and comes with lots of zsh plugins (189 currently) but none are enabled by default. Some zsh plugins are tailored for your specific operating system whilst others are aimed at helping improve developers workflow. Wether you're using Ruby, Python, PHP or Javascript as your main language or you're a systems administrator, there will be a plugin to help. The full list of zsh plugins is available at https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/wiki/Plugins, Here are the zsh plugins I'm currently using:

command-not-found

Only for use with Ubuntu and openSUSE. If a command isn't found in your $PATH it wull use the system command-not-found package to find it.

composer

If you're a PHP developer then I'm sure you use Composer a lot. This plugin provides shortcuts to some of Composer's commands:

c      composer
csu    composer self-update
cu     composer update
ci     composer install
ccp    composer create-project
cget   installs composer on the current path

git

I'm sure everyone knows git now, right? This plugin provides aliases to the most commonly used git commands:

g        git
gsh      git status
gl       git pull
gp       git push
gcmsg    git commit -m
gcm      git checkout master
gb       git branch
ga       git add
gm       git merge

A full list of the git plugin aliases can be found at https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/wiki/Plugin:git

npm

Simply adds autocompletion to the npm command. Type npm (space) and press tab to get autocompletion for the available npm commands. Note Be prepared for a long wait when using autocompletion with npm search.

osx

The OSX plugin provides aliases and functionality for those using Apple's OSX OS.

tab           open the current directory in a new tab
pfd           return the path of the frontmost Finder window
pfs           return the current Finder selection
cdf           cd to the current Finder directory
pushdf        pushd to the current Finder directory
quick-look    quick Look a specified file
man-preview   open a specified man page in Preview
trash         move a specified file to the Trash

sudo

This is one of those plugins that becomes a must have after a short period of using it. Simply hitting ESC twice puts sudo in front of the current command, or the last one if your cli is empty. Genius!

vagrant

This plugin adds autocomplete help to the vagrant commands. For example, entering vagrant box followed by tab shows help for management of vagrant boxes.