PSSuperPrompt "EC Edition"

Basic description from @poshcodebear

Some cool extra tricks for your PowerShell prompt to display more details and colors

My updated idea on what this EC Edition will be: a display immediately above the CLI with various pieces of information. As much of this as possible will be customizable in with what is display in what colors. The prompt itself will also be customizable for displayed info and colors.

Also a "make my PS prompt normal again".

Current Status: Successfully running-broken (Will probably run once variables file copied)

Even more status update: I broke down the code into functions so it's more managable. I've moved the function declaraions to separate PS1 file and called it from prompt.ps1. This merely necessitates creating a new symlink (or copying the file itself) to that $profile directory mentioned below. The Install instructions below are only semi-accurate. Have write something better up tomorrow or the near future.

Running the script

Perhaps because of a gap in my PS shell knowledge, I didn't realize I could run prompt.ps1 directly from the repo directory with

. .\prompt.ps1

For me for instance I would switch my repo directory and run the script:

cd C:\Users\tildes\Documents\repos\PSSuperPrompt-EC-Edition\scripts

. .\prompt.ps1

Requirements (Windows):

PS v7.x for Windows 10/11

I've realized over the course of re-writing and testing there aren't any reall requiments besides PS itself. There is one thing that doesn't work in PS5 which I will probably fix later (ternary variable declaration)

Optional but good to have:

Local admin/root access to system in order to fully customize prompt (and run programs with local admin) - Note: not fully tested/confirmed as requirement

Git for Windows (available via package manager like chocolatey or the git website
- choco command: choco install git

PS module posh-git (recommended by original author)
- Upon searching I found poshgit listed as a package in the chocolatey repo, but I haven't tried it yet. The command as above would be choco install poshgit
- As it turns out there's several ways of installing posh-git that involves a few more steps depending on a number of variables. I'll linking to the instructions on the project's GitHub and leave it at that: https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git
Chocolatey package manager for windows: my own preference for Windows package managers (I imagine win-get will server this purpose too)
- Install instructions with a copy/paste installer script can be found on the chocolatey install guide page.

Installation [work in progress]

Original line from author for installation:

To install it, just paste the entire thing into your $profile, or dot source the .ps1 file from your $profile. Either will work.

I figured out what this means: $profile is an environemnt variable pointing to a "special" PS1. Simply open powershell and type in $profile to see the path to this PS1 script. Mine for instance is C:\Users\tildes\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

This where my installation steps might differ slightly from yours: I utilized some symbolic links to make things easier on myself. I'll provide multiple options for the average non-forking user:

Note: latest version I split the variable declarations into a separate file so this must be symbolically linked or copied to the same directory as propmt.ps1. I'm not sure yet if I'll keep this approach.

Method 1:

Go to the equivalent path in your profile: C:\Users\tildes\Documents\PowerShell\
copy the prompt.ps1 script from this repo to that folder location
Rename the script to Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 (the file name from your .$profile command)
Open PowerShell and issue the command:. $profile

Method 2, from PowerShell prompt: (optional, more steps and uncessarily complicated)

Assuming the above mentioned $profile folder does not have any files, create a symblic link for the repository file PS profile default script.ps1 in that $profile folder. The command I used was:

 cmd /c mklink C:\Users\tildes\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1  "C:\Users\tildes\Documents\repos\PSSuperPrompt-EC-Edition\prompt.ps1"

(Ya, I know I'm using the old symbolic link command, don't judge me)

This creates a symbolic link of the prompt.ps1 script to the script named in your $profile command. And you can safely remove said symbolic link any time you want.
For new version: use same method to create symbolic link to the functions script. something like:

cmd /c mklink C:\Users\tildes\Documents\PowerShell\superprompt_functions.ps1 C:\Users\tildes\Documents\repos\PSSuperPrompt-EC-Edition\scripts\superprompt_functions.ps1

As above, the final step is to issue . $profile

Uninstall [work in progress]

Since I havne't added a way to drop back to the default PS Prompt yet, merely delete the symbolic links created above and issue . $profile.

Latest Updates will be at the bottom

Re-reading these notes after forking I realized I didn't follow the instructions in my testing of the original version and attempted use. I may just apply to be a software tester.

I'll go through the notes here and make some useful comments of my own.

The formatting seems to be a little off versus the original but I haven't got around to fixing it. I blame CR/LF.

Notes

Yes, the code is a bit ugly; I've just tweaked with it here and there for a few years and this is what I've come up with, but I've never taken the time to really make it look "spiffy".

Better looking code than I would do for myself

No, it does not have any configurable options. Sorry. Up until literally the moment I'm writing this, it has always just run on my machines, so configurability for personal preference was obviously not on my radar. I would love to add that, though, so if I get around to it, or if someone likes this starting point and wants to shoot me a pull request with extra bells and whistles, it may very well get those features in the future.

I'm thinking of planning on thinking of adding some customization options. With a...menu? Or make the user edit a JSON. Maybe both.

The git functions require the module posh-git to be installed. It tests for this and will work perfectly fine without it, you just won't get any git details in git repositories. It does use a global to track that which I added because, at least on my machines, the module test was causing my prompt to take multiple seconds to draw after every command; this way just tests once so you're not getting the added delay every time.

This I wish I'd read again multiple times while I was editing. Would have saved some trouble. Actually explains a couple of things. Although I think I found a better way of testing for the posh-git module. The purpose of the test was different than I thought it was.

The Reset-Prompt function (and its alias 'rsp') is really just a way to make mucking with the prompt easier so I don't have to reload every time I try something, or if I set up another prompt it lets me switch back to this one with four keystrokes.

As it turns out this reset-prompt functionality was intended for something else entirely, not resetting the PS prompt to the "vanilla" PS prompt.

To install it, just paste the entire thing into your $profile, or dot source the .ps1 file from your $profile. Either will work.

See above for my "installation" guide. And if you're brave see @poshcodebear's dev branch for a new install script he's created (I haven't tested with EC edition yet).

If I wind up taking the time, at some point I plan to add a better description and do a lot of the cleanup and configurability stuff I mentioned above.

That said, I know myself too well; please don't hold your breath, as it could happen any time between now and the heat death of the universe, and probably closer to the latter than the former ;)

Not sure why I made that ascii. Seemed strangely fitting.

The job control stuff I just added when I started this repo, and I haven't really used it much at all since then, so it may or may not be all that great and functional. I just realized that I should be making better use of jobs, and one of the problems with jobs is how invisible they are (you have to remember they're there, and they never let you know when they're done), so the jobs piece is meant to make them more visible.

I understand the intent behind this functionality to some degree now. It's kind of an optional feature. I'll leave it in though.

Fun fact: the original inspiration for this prompt is the Gentoo default prompts (both for root and for regular users). It still somewhat resembles that prompt, though obviously heavily modified at this point

You call that fun?

Now this is fun...or weird. Definitely one of those two.

Also, Gentoo? You just use that so you can take a break while you compile your kernel for the 5th time today, aren't yoU?

I use Arch btw.

Starting Work

This script starts with some extended tests to see if the OS is windows or Linux for purpose of determining if it's being run under an Admin/root level shell.

After very little work it seems likely some how this OS answer will have to branch out for the two possibilities from the start. In other words ask the OS question and pass that in the main function then take appropriate actions depending on the OS.

Having said that I'm going to re-write it until it works on Windows then go back when I have a Linux environment and add that in. Or via Ubunut-bash-Windows, because of how not convoluted that sounds (running PS 7 via bash via ubuntu via Windows...nailed it. Oh even better: PS 7 via bash via ubuntu via Windows...in a docker container).

I was having trouble with detecting the posh-git module so I did a little experimenting and this actually runs on the PS command line:

if (get-module -Name posh* -ListAvailable -Verbose:$false) { Write-Host "found" } else { Write-Host "not found" }

As I'm still troubleshooting without posh-git, this returns not found for me. But I could also set a variable to either True or False depending instead. I mean it's a few lines longer to create a function to do this but I know it works.

Announcing Release Candidate 1 (RC1)

As of January 28th 2024 I had successfully gone through and essentially refactored the code: I fixed one or two logic errors, removed or simplified some code and shifted the code in separate functions instead of the one big one (and extra).

Upon running the script for comparison, the custom prompt of the EC edition with that of the original @poshcodebear version, it's maybe 95% there appearance-wise. I still need to test the further functionality of the rest of it. Which I think is just that "jobs" related function.

The original tested to see if posh-git was installed but didn't do anything further related to git. I think posh-git was supposed to take care of any git-related tasks. Which means EC edition tests to see if git runs or not, displays [GIT] and nothing further.

As it turns out the admin privelege test is there for customization of the prompt character (# or $ depending).

Once it appears I've gone as far as I can with re-creating the original in refactored form, I'll start adding features.

Brainstorming on re-writes and features

Actual trascript of converation with @poshcodebear when he first saw the fork

My interpretation of what this script is apparently doing. Or what this fork will do ultimately.

Basically the main "chunk" of the script is to collect information about the environment and save information into appropriate variable.

This is an indirect way of saying "asking questions" that the script can answer. Questions like "is git installed?" and "what version of powershell am I?".

With the information collected it then pieces together the information utilizing this data for display both above the actually command line and as part of the prompt.

Some of the data - like the number of items in the command history - is collected each time a command is run via this script while other information - like the PS version currently running - is just collected the one time. Based on this data custom colors are also assigned.

@poshcodebear the PS job function I view as something of a bonus feature as doesn't fit either of the "get information" or "set data based on information" categories.

Since the fork has already strayed away from the original purpose, I'm going to keep going in that direction:

First I would like to establish a config file for both established information about the environment as well as user preferences.
- This would include both what to display in the information section of the prompt as well as the prompt itself.
- Also establish a list of colors
Then I would like to add some sort of dead-simple customization options for colors what information will be displayed
- For instance (since my displaying [git] doesn't currently serve any purpose) I could make this say [git command ready: yes/no] just to establish it's there
- For me in particular I would like to know how many if any applications installed via chocolatey need to be updated. Something like [chocolately updates: 3] and if there no pending updates don't display anything
I will probably make an install script as well, though mine may end up not looking anything like @poshcodebear's version.

tildesarecool / PSSuperPrompt-EC-Edition