No matter which shell you use in a terminal, the prompt probably looks very dull in the vast majority of cases and only provides basic information – typically just telling you the current working directory. Fortunately, the vast majority of shells offer users a function for customizing the prompt. Prompt engines such as Powerline or Oh My Zsh take advantage of this. As a rule, they use various themes that give the environment a more appealing look.

These engines can also display useful information in the input line. The is then typically broken down into different segments, which gives you the opportunity to populate these segments with the kind of information you actually need. In the simplest case, you might display the date or time in one segment. More complex configurations let you embed almost any kind of data. For example, in Git directories, you could use a segment to display the kind of information that you need for Git, such as the status of the current repository.

Theme Engines and Nerd Fonts

Powerline [1] provides a very powerful engine and not only for customizing the shell prompt. Instead, the software can customize a variety of different status lines, also in the Vim editor. Oh My Zsh [2] is a popular configuration tool for the Zsh. Similar to Oh My Zsh, Oh My Posh [3] lets you customize the shell prompt. Unlike Oh My Zsh, however, it doesn't matter which shell you actually use in your environment.

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