iTerm2 and zsh Setup

In this section you will find my notes on setting up iTerm2, an awesome terminal emulator for MacOS, and ohmyzsh, an amazing open-source framework for managing your zsh configuration.

Install#

  1. Install iTerm2:

    brew install --cask iterm2

  2. Install zsh:

    brew install zsh

  3. Install ohmyzsh:

    sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

  4. Update ohmyzsh:

    omz update

  5. Exit Terminal and open iTerm2: ⌘ + Space Bar > Search 'iTerm'

  6. You are done setting up iTerm2 and ohmyzsh!

Change theme#

tip

To configure ohmyzsh, you will almost always be doing so by opening ~/.zshrc.

  1. Open the ~/.zshrc configuration file:

    open ~/.zshrc

  2. Change your theme by updating ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell" accordingly.

  3. Find a theme you like here and follow the install instructions in the theme repositories.

  4. Run exec zsh to reload your new configuration:

    exec zsh

You should see your new theme in action.

Add an alias#

Aliases are useful shorcuts you set to reduce the time spent on typing commands you often use. For example, if you often type:

cd /Users/evantay/Documents/Git

or even worse:

cd /Users/
cd evantay
cd Documents/Git

You should add an alias for cd /Users/evantay/Documents/Git:

  1. Open the ~/.zshrc configuration file:

    open ~/.zshrc

  2. Add a new alias at the bottom of the file:

    # Example aliases
    # alias zshconfig="mate ~/.zshrc"
    # alias ohmyzsh="mate ~/.oh-my-zsh"
    alias repo="/Users/evantay/Documents/Git"

  3. Reload zsh:

    exec zsh

You can now type repo whenever you want to cd /Users/evantay/Documents/Git.

Resources#

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