fzf VS zsh-autosuggestions

I've been frustrated with how slow terminal filesystem navigation feels in comparison with modern apps like Notion, Slack, Discord, etc.

I discovered the amazing https://github.com/junegunn/fzf , and realized I could build ⌘-k for the terminal.

In my blog post yesterday, I mentioned fzf. Its simplicity and power make it a good tool for many scripting tasks. In this post, we will see a practical example of how to use it in a CLI program and package it with Nix.

But also, sway-launcher-desktop is a brilliant hack that uses fzf to implement a launcher that works in the console. I can think of many such use cases. As a starting point, I revisited my fzf shell integration configuration today and decided to invest in it a bit more for my scripting efforts.

fzf GitHub

fzf is a command-line fuzzy finder that makes navigating through files, commands, and processes much easier. It's kind of like ctrl + P on vscode, but for your terminal

Install "fzf" [0] and set it up to be used with control+r, there's no going back. You get as a bonus the chance to use fzf in a lot of other places :)

I guess that more advance tool would be "atuin" [1], but it is too much for my use case.

[0] https://github.com/junegunn/fzf

FZF is a command line fuzzy finder. It's an incredibly powerful tool that you can use (at its simplest) to filter lists as you type.

fzf (fuzzy finder)

fzf

#!/bin/sh # Install zsh sudo yum install git zsh -y sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)" # Install zsh-syntax-highlighting plugin git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting # Install zsh-autosuggestions plugin git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions echo "plugins=(zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autosuggestions)" >> ~/.zshrc echo "source ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh" >> ~/.zshrc echo "ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE='fg=blue'" >> ~/.zshrc echo "ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_USE_ASYNC=true" >> ~/.zshrc source ~/.zshrc echo "Installation of zsh and Oh My Zsh with suggestion plugin complete!"

# zsh autosuggestions git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions # add to your .zshrc source ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh

# 1. Backup existing configuration cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc.backup 2>/dev/null || echo "No existing ~/.zshrc" # 2. Install Homebrew /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" # 3. Install iTerm2 brew install --cask iterm2 # 4. Install Oh My Zsh sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)" # 5. Install Powerlevel10k theme git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k sed -i '' 's/ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"/ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k\/powerlevel10k"/' ~/.zshrc # 6. Install essential plugins git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting brew install autojump # 7. Restart terminal or reload configuration source ~/.zshrc

I have a utility called ZSH Autosuggestions, and it's probably one of the most useful things on my computer. It shows you a sort of preview of the most recent command you typed that matches the prefix of the current command you are typing. It's basically an automatic tool that bookmarks commands based on usage. I think the best bookmark systems are ones which simply track your entire history and suggest relevant pages based on it. That way the process of bookmark creation is automatic and you don't have to predict what you will need to access frequently.

https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions?tab=readme-...

zsh can compile zsh scripts using the builtin zcompile into wordcode. This will have the effect of having faster parsing. The way we use this to get a faster prompt is to explicitly ask zsh to compile certain chunky plugins(think your syntax highlighters and completion plugins) into wordcode.

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

This is not intuitive, or efficient, so our first task is fix that using zsh-autosuggestions. zsh-autosuggestions will provide autocomplete suggestions from your history (and other locations) as you type, simply press the right arrow key, or use the end-of-line keyboard shortcut (e.g. ctrl+e) to accept the suggestion. If you only want part of a suggestion, you can use the forward-word keyboard shortcut, which is option+right arrow or alt+right arrow which will complete only up to the end of the next word and continue providing suggestions from there.

I'm using the zsh-autosuggestion plugin (so not a feature of the terminal but of the shell):

https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

Do you like typing? I guess not. We can have some autosuggestion inside our terminal by using a plugin named zsh-autosuggestions.