zsh-syntax-highlighting

Fish shell like syntax highlighting for Zsh.

Requirements: zsh 4.3.9 or superior.

Try it

Here is a one-liner to try it without installing or modifying anything:

wget --no-check-certificate --output-document=/tmp/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh https://github.com/nicoulaj/zsh-syntax-highlighting/raw/master/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh && . /tmp/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh

Install it

In your ~/.zshrc

• Download the script or clone this repository:

  git clone git://github.com/nicoulaj/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git
  

• Source the script at the end of ~/.zshrc:

  source /path/to/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh
  

• Source ~/.zshrc to take changes into account:

  source ~/.zshrc
  

With oh-my-zsh

• Download the script or clone this repository in oh-my-zsh plugins directory:

  cd ~/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/
  git clone git://github.com/nicoulaj/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git
  

• Activate the plugin in ~/.zshrc (in last position):

  plugins=( [plugins...] zsh-syntax-highlighting)
  

• Source ~/.zshrc to take changes into account:

  source ~/.zshrc
  

Tweak it

Optionally, you can override the default styles used for highlighting. The styles are declared in the ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES array. You can override styles this way:

# To differentiate aliases from other command types
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[alias]='fg=magenta,bold'

# To have paths colored instead of underlined
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[path]='fg=cyan'

# To disable highlighting of globbing expressions
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[globbing]='none'

You can tweak the styles used to colorize matching brackets by overriding the ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_MATCHING_BRACKETS_STYLES.

ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_MATCHING_BRACKETS_STYLES=(
  'fg=blue,bold'    # Style for first level of imbrication
  'fg=green,bold'   # Style for second level of imbrication
  'fg=magenta,bold' # etc... Put as many styles as you wish, or leave
  'fg=yellow,bold'  # empty to disable brackets matching.
  'fg=cyan,bold'
)

This must be done after the script is sourced, otherwise your styles will be overwritten. The syntax for declaring styles is documented here.