If you are a developer and haven’t heard of Oh My Zsh (from here on: OMZ) yet, check it out!

Once a tool sort of forced on me at my first job, OMZ has become my favorite alternative to Bash.

There are helpful plugins for every developer, like improved auto-completion, automatic loading of .env files (hello, dotenv plugin! ❤️), extensive customizability, and more.

This is the command-line stack I use for development on macOS:

• Oh my Zsh (with built-in Agnoster theme);
• iTerm2 (with built-in Solarized Dark theme);
• Powerline (no separate install needed);
• Menlo for Powerline.

Additional links:

• Official Oh My Zsh theme overview;
• Official Oh My Zsh plugins;
• Official Powerline-compatible fonts.

NB. I will not explain how to install these bits of software. Plenty of official documentation and blog posts with instructions on that topic exist.

Customizing iTerm2 look-and-feel

One of the best things about OMZ is that you can customize it at will. I’ve added several plugins, aliases, and other helpers to my stack. A developer’s setup is very personal; hence, I’m not going into details here.

When it comes to iTerm2, however, it is easy to get lost in its extensive preference window. These are some places that I check when customizing my CLI’s visuals:

• Appearance → Windows → Show window number in title bar;
• Appearance → Windows → Hide scrollbars;
• Appearance → Tabs → Show tab bar even where is only one tab;
• Appearance → Dimming → Dim inactive split panes;
• Profiles → General → Reuse previous session's directory;
• Profiles → Colors → Color Presets… → Solarized Dark;
• Profiles → Text → Use built-in Powerline glyphs;
• Profiles → Text → Font → Menlo for Powerline, Regular, size 14;
• Profiles → Terminal → Unlimited scrollback.

(Obviously, the entire section Appearance is worth noting here but too big to list in full.)

Status bar

Extra, if you like a fancy status bar on top of your screen, check this out:

• Appearance → Theme → Minimal;
• Appearance → Tab bar location → Top;
• Appearance → Status bar location → Top;
• Profiles → Session → Status bar enabled;
• Press Configure Status Bar to customize the bar.

Wrap-up

I love Oh My Zsh with Powerline. Check this out, and you may like it too.

Changelog

2025-01-16:

• Flattened nested lists.
• Ended list items with semicolons or periods.
• Updated some settings to the latest versions.
• Improved wording throughout the article.