styled terminal with iTerm
Tags: iterm, ohmyzsh, terminal, macos
Published: 2019-08-08 16:09:32

---
title: styled terminal with iTerm
published: true
description: using iTerm and spaceship prompt to have a well looking terminal 💅
tags: iterm, ohmyzsh, terminal, macOS
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/vjnd6fe1c18quienodug.png
---


New [iTerm2](https://www.iterm2.com) version 3.3.1 comes with a complete new and good looking features.

I just shared a tweet about how my terminal looks and immediately start receiving some questions about how to get there.

{% twitter 1158789431047966723 %}

*ok, so let's start!*

## Getting start

Disclaimer: _if you have installed iTerm 3.3.1, zsh, oh-my-zsh and spaceship_prompt jump to configuration section_

#### iTerm2

To start, we need to download and install [iTerm](https://www.iterm2.com/downloads.html).
Follow the steps as a normal application.

#### ZSH

_Zsh is a shell designed for interactive use, although it is also a powerful scripting language_

This is a may pain full step, and this would change depending on your configuration. So the best I can do is share the most complete guide that I found to do it - [Installing zsh](https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/wiki/Installing-ZSH)

#### Oh-my-zsh

_Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration_

Use the official documentations of Oh-my-zsh to install it - [Installing oh-my-zsh](https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh#getting-started)

You can get deeper in oh-my-zsh and their configuration, but this is not the scope of this post. So the most important you need to understand about it is his entry configuration file. `~/.zshrc` here you can control themes and plugins.

#### spaceship-prompt

_Spaceship is a minimalistic, powerful and extremely customizable Zsh prompt_

Follow the installation options in spaceship-prompt project - [spaceship-prompt installation](https://github.com/denysdovhan/spaceship-prompt#installing)


## Configuration

Ok so now our iTerm should be looking nice. But we can add some configuration to get here: 
![carcruz-iterm](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/ymquha320a4u9jz6ldjp.png)

#### tabs in left panel

To change the tabs to be located at left, just go to `iTerm > Preferences > Appearance` there, in `General` you will see `Tab bar location`, set that to `Left`

You also can customize the icon and session title, to do that, simple go to `iTerm > Preferences > Profiles`, `General` and in `Basics` section going to see the `Icon` and `Title` inputs.

#### status bar

This is a new super cool ui improvement of iTerm, to enabled it go to `iTerm > Preferences > Profiles` then in the left sub sections go to `Session`. There at the bottom, you will find the enabled check and the configuration link, where you can customize which components put on your bar. It's simple just drag and drop the components.

![](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/4tms8995w84q4vu76tcl.png)

To change the location of the bar, just go to `iTerm > Preferences > Appearance`, there in `General` you will see `Status bar location`, set that to `Bottom`

#### customize spaceship-prompt

Well this is like a bonus, in my case I wanted that the git branch indicator only shows in status bar, so I had to disable it in spaceship-prompt. To do that, go to you zsh config file(`~/.zshrc` in normal case) and add this config flag

`SPACESHIP_GIT_BRANCH_SHOW="false"`

Save the changes and **restart** iTerm

___

Thanks for read! If have any questions or comments leave bellow 🙂


Pura vida 🇨🇷✌🏼