How to look like a pro

Some general tips and tricks to make your editors and terminals look cool.

These are some general tips and tricks to make your editors and terminals look cool. They are not going to greatly improve your workflow, but they will make things look cool and thus make your working more enjoyful. Please do this in your own time.

Powershell themes

There are themes available for Powershell which you can use to make your boring terminal look cooler. These will also be used by Windows Terminal and VSCode after some extra configuration.

Figure 1: Look at all the colors on top! It contains the current git branch, as well as which Spotify song I'm currently listening to. Remember to only listen to cool music if you want to look cool!

Step 1: Installing new fonts

All these cool extra icons like the play button and the folder symbol in Figure 1 require extra icons not contained in your standard monotype font. To unlock them, you have to install "Nerd fonts".

Figure 2: It is cool to be a nerd these days.

In the following examples, I will use CascadiaCode NerdFont, which you can download zipped via this link

Unzip its' contents, and install Caskaydia Cove Nerd Font Complete Mono Windows Compatible.ttf, by right-clicking the file and install for all users. You know it has to be good with such a long filename!

Step 2: Configure software to use Nerd Font

We first have to configure your editor/terminal to use the Nerd Font, otherwise all the icons will be shown as , which spoils the fun.

In Windows Terminal, press CTRL+, , which opens the Settings window. Next, navigate to Windows Powershell > Appearance. And under Fonts, select CaskaydiaCove NF, if you installed the font I suggested.

In VSCode, also press CTRL+, to open the Settings window. Navigate to Text Editor > Font and under Font Family type CaskaydiaCove NF in front.

In Powershell, you can right click window bar and navigate to Properties > Font and under Font, you can select CaskaydiaCove NF.

Step 3: Install Git for Windows

If you want your themes to integrate with Git, you can install Git for Windows .

I have not tested if the themes worked without Git for Windows, so I recommend installing it.

I also wrote a guide on how to use Git by the way.

Step 4: Install themes for Powershell

Now open up a Powershell instance as administrator, and run the following lines of code:

Install-Module posh-git -Scope CurrentUser
Install-Module oh-my-posh -Scope CurrentUser -RequiredVersion 2.0.412
Update-Module -Name oh-my-posh -AllowPrerelease -Scope CurrentUser
Install-Module -Name PSReadLine -Scope CurrentUser -Force -SkipPublisherCheck

This will probably throw you some warnings if you really want to install this stuff, but let's trust the good people at Microsoft.

Step 5: Configure Powershell

Because we want Powershell to automatically use new cool themes, we will configure our Powershell profile. Call notepad $PROFILE and paste the following lines of text:

Import-Module posh-git
Import-Module oh-my-posh
Set-PoshPrompt -Theme cinnamon

If everything worked, if you open up a new Powershell terminal, it will look like Figure 1. If you see any squares as , you have to check if Step 2 went OK.

Step 6: Being a unique individual

A cool person decides what is cool him/herself of course. To get a list of all available themes, you can call Get-PoshThemes.

This provide a nice demo reel of available themes.

If you find something you like, you can set it as your default theme by repeating Step 5, and changing the last line, e.g.: Set-PoshPrompt -Theme powerline.

Bonus: Get a headache with retro effects

Windows Terminal has retro effects available. Again press CTRL+,, go to Windows Powershell > Appearance. And click Retro terminal effects.

This will make your terminal more headache inducing: