riobard / bash-powerline

Powerline-style Bash prompt in pure Bash script. See also https://github.com/riobard/zsh-powerline

bash-powerline

Powerline for Bash in pure Bash script.

Features

• Git: show branch name, tag name, or unique short hash.
• Git: show "*" symbol with uncommited modifications.
• Git: show "↑" symbol and number of commits ahead of remote.
• Git: show "↓" symbol and number of commits behind remote.
• Platform-dependent prompt symbols.
• Color-coded prompt symbol according to previous command execution status.
• Use Bash builtin when possible to reduce delay. Delay sucks!
• No need for patched fonts.

Installation

Download the Bash script

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/riobard/bash-powerline/master/bash-powerline.sh > ~/.bash-powerline.sh

And source it in your .bashrc

source ~/.bash-powerline.sh

For best result, use Solarized colorscheme for your terminal emulator. Or hack your own colorscheme by modifying the script. It's really easy.

Why?

This script is inspired by powerline-shell, which is implemented in Python. Python scripts are much easier to write and maintain than Bash scripts, but invoking Python interpreter introduces noticable delay to draw. I hate delays, so I ported just the part I need to pure Bash script.

The other reason is that I don't like the idea of patching fonts. The font patching mechanism from the original Powerline does not work with the bitmap font (Apple Monaco without anti-aliasing) I use on non-retina screens. I'd rather stick with existing unicode symbols.

See also

• zsh-powerline: Same thing but for Zsh.
• powerline: Unified Powerline written in Python. This is the future of all Powerline derivatives.
• vim-powerline: Powerline in Vim writtien in pure Vimscript. Deprecated.
• tmux-powerline: Powerline for Tmux written in Bash script. Deprecated.
• powerline-shell: Powerline for Bash/Zsh/Fish implemented in Python. Might be merged into the unified Powerline.
• emacs powerline: Powerline for Emacs

bash-powerline's Issues

Doesn't seem to start up in WSL

~ $ sh ~/.bash-powerline.sh
/home/dnesteruk/.bash-powerline.sh: 50: /home/dnesteruk/.bash-powerline.sh: Syntax error: "(" unexpected (expecting "fi")

support for sourced python virtual environments

Using a default terminal, after sourcing a python virtual environment script

cd ~
mkdir folder
cd folder
python -m venv venv
source ven/bin/activate

This action modifies the bash prompt to something like this

(venv) ~/folder

Using this bash script drops that part. Is it possible to add support for this?

Can't work in Mac

I try to use the bash_powerline.sh file to replace my .bash_profile. But after that, I open a new terminal, I try to open ipython which is working well before, but it shows command not found. What should I do to make it work?

an wierd "a" infront of github tags

tested different Fonts.

Branch not showing on system with older versions of git

On my centos 6.9 machine, git symbolic-ref doesn't have the --short option. One way to accommodate for older git versions is $($git_eng rev-parse --abbrev-ref 2>/dev/null). Or i could have just updated git ;)

terminal title

XTERM_TITLE='\[\e]0;\u@\H: \w\a\]'
then change
PS1="$XTERM_TITLE$cwd$git$symbol"

(I am too lazy to do a pull request)

Slow all of a sudden.

I have to say this is perfect and I have been using this for some time, however all of a sudden it's taking several minutes to load terminal and I have narrowed this down to powerline.

Do you have any suggestion on how I could debug this to find the root cause?

Would you please use the following code

I like bash-powerline very much. I think the following code is much portable

readonly SYMBOL_GIT_BRANCH=$(echo -e '\ue0a0')

I use Linux and Windows. I think the branch glyphs can not display on my environment.

git info background blue too bright

In the solarized theme, blue is defined as bash color 33 aka #0087ff, and that's how it's set in bash-powerline. However, this seems much too bright on the dark theme:

Confusingly, your screenshot shows the much more fitting and moderate #3a8bd2. How?

Show git stash status?

Could we show git stash status on the prompt too?

'Open new tab' In MacOS Sierra Terminal opens in the home folder always

#.. when it is supposed to open the new tab in the same folder from where Cmd+T (Shell | New Tab | New Tab with [same] Settings) was pressed. Oh, and I am using the default bash terminal.

This works fine in Ubuntu 16.04 (when I press Ctrl+Shift+T to open a new tab).

The only change I have made to the bash-powerline.sh file (in Mac and Ubuntu) is to add one line to the function ps1() to add a new line #character:
PS1+="\e[m \n$ "

And, in .bashrc, the last line is this
source ~/.bash-powerline.sh

It works fine in MacOS if I uncomment the above last line in .bashrc.

Any idea how to resolve this? Thanks.

Project activity

Hi,

I see a few good pull requests. Is there someone up to review and apply them ?

I'm able to help if needed.

Thanks.

Thing of beauty

Not an issue, just a thank you. I've tried alternatives that turned out to be too slow on my machine. What a brilliant idea to use bash in this.

It's sooo much faster. Thank you 👍 💯

PS1 for short prompt possible?

Is it possible to add a short prompt?

something like:

PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '

E.g.

~/Documents/folder/foo/bar

will be displayed as

[user@machine .bar]$