From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 16260 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 2014 15:43:55 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-users-help@zsh.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes List-Id: Zsh Users List List-Post: List-Help: X-Seq: 18770 Received: (qmail 3911 invoked from network); 25 Apr 2014 15:43:38 -0000 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on f.primenet.com.au X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE, SPF_HELO_PASS autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: zsh-users@zsh.org From: Martin Vaeth Subject: Re: zsh-newuser-install Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 15:43:21 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <140416102727.ZM19090@torch.brasslantern.com> <534FE710.3020601@eastlink.ca> <140417123722.ZM22179@torch.brasslantern.com> <20140423165024.1480528a@pws-pc.ntlworld.com> Reply-To: martin@mvath.de X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: lounge.imp.fu-berlin.de User-Agent: slrn/pre1.0.0-26 (Linux) Mikael Magnusson wrote: > > If nobody used oh-my-zsh, the world would be a better place. Or at > least #zsh would be. I agree with you that oh-my-zsh is horrible in many aspects. But it has a major advantage which is why people use it: It enables a lot of features which are off in zsh by default and which many people are not aware of. No, newusers does not solve this problem, because most users simply ignore this, and most users will never read the full manpage unless they have a particular problem. I understand that most features are off by default to keep compatibility. However, in interactive shells compatbility is not really an issue. Perhaps one could enable much more *interactive* features by default which are actually the biggest selling point of zsh. At least, some zshrc could be shipped which enables lots of these features so that e.g. on a live cd where you "must" live with the defaults you get more luxury (distribution maintainers are not always experts in zsh, especially e.g. those who produce live cds, so it is better to give them good examples). Some examples not mentioned yet by others: Most people are not even aware that zsh can show them what type of word they are currently completing and even to describe them the purpose of options. In fact, I suppose that most work done in the description of options is done in vain for most people if something unless something like the following becomes a default: zstyle ':completion:*' format '%B(%d)%b' zstyle ':completion:*' verbose true Also, I realized that many zsh users did not know about the goodies they can get from e.g.: zstyle ':completion:*' list-colors ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS} zstyle ':completion:*' menu select=1 zmodload zsh/complist setopt no_list_ambiguous bash_auto_list # (the latter to catch bash users) REPORTTIME=5 TIMEFMT='%J %M kB %*E (user: %*U, kernel: %*S)' setopt cdable_vars setopt auto_name_dirs setopt extended_glob setopt notify # and with lesser importance setopt numeric_globsort setopt long_list_jobs ... many more options Sure, for any option there are certainly some people who prefer it differently or simpler, but for people who just quickly check out whether zsh might be something for them, they might get hooked to zsh when these features are on in their testing environment. They would probably not spend the time to read the manual just to find out that such features are avaible if they are not even aware that zsh is able to do things like this almost "out-of-the-box": This is exactly why people are impressed by oh-my-zsh.