Boost your Terminal with These Powerful CLI Tools

Before We Start:

1. This guid I ma going to use the Kitty Terminal which is:

   The fast, feature-rich, GPU based terminal emulator
   Kitty Terminal

   You can use whatever Terminal emulator you prefer. If you want to use the same configuration I use you can check my Configurations repository. Where you can install kitty along with the configurations and theme.

2. I will use Debian as my OS, all installation scripts will only work on Debian based linux distributions (Don't worry I'll include the official websites & installations if you are not using Debian based Linux distributions).

3. I will use Zsh as my shell. checkout my previous Blog post Boost your Terminal with Zsh extensions. If you want to add custom behaviors in the following sections.

CLI Tools

1. bat

   A cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.
   bat

   Basically it is a replacement for cat command with more powerful features.

   
   • Use the arrow keys to navigate the code. And press q to quit.

   You can also display more than one file at once:

   

   To install it you have to run the following command.

   zsh

   sudo apt install bat
   mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
   ln -s /usr/bin/batcat ~/.local/bin/bat

   
   

   You also can change the theme. Checkout the official documentation for more explicit details.

   • Integration with other CLI tools:

     You can pass any command output to bat via piping in order to display it in a more convenient way: For example You can pass the output of curl command to bat:

     Before:

     

     After:

     

     Note:
     In the coming sections we will see how other CLI tools integrate with Bat

2. eza

   eza is a modern, maintained replacement for the venerable file-listing command-line program ls that ships with Unix and Linux operating systems, giving it more features and better defaults. It uses colours to distinguish file types and metadata. It knows about symlinks, extended attributes, and Git. And it's small, fast, and just one single binary.
   By deliberately making some decisions differently, eza attempts to be a more featureful, more user-friendly version of ls.
   eza

   

   To install it run the following commands or check the installation documentation:

   zsh

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install -y gpg
    
   sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
   wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eza-community/eza/main/deb.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/gierens.gpg
   echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/gierens.gpg] http://deb.gierens.de stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gierens.list
   sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/keyrings/gierens.gpg /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gierens.list
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install -y eza

   • Replace ls with eza:

     It is better to use eza but with the ls keyword to save up some muscle memory. In order to do so you need to set up aliases in the .zshrc file. Here are my eza aliases:

     zsh

     alias ls='eza --color=always --git --no-filesize --icons=always --no-time --no-user --no-permissions'
     alias lc='eza --color=always --long --git --no-filesize --icons=always --no-time --no-user --no-permissions'
     alias ll='eza -l --color=always --long --git --icons=always'
     alias la='eza -a --color=always --long --git --icons=always'
     alias lt='eza --tree --level=2 --icons=always --color=always'

3. zoxide

   zoxide is a smarter cd command, inspired by z and autojump.
   It remembers which directories you use most frequently, so you can "jump" to them in just a few keystrokes
   zoxide works on all major shells.
   zoxide

   Similar to eza, zoxide is the better cd

   

   To install it via the following command:

   zsh

   curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide/main/install.sh | sh

   • Replace cd with zoxide:

     Similar to eza it is better to use the cd keyword instead:

     Here are my aliases in my .zshrc file:

     zsh

     alias cd='z'
     alias ..='z ..'
     alias ...='z ../..'
     alias ....='z ../../..'
     alias ~='z ~'

4. fzf

   fzf is a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder.
   fzf

   It is a better and super fast way to search in the terminal

   

   To install it run the following command:

   zsh

   git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/junegunn/fzf.git ~/.fzf
   ~/.fzf/install

   • Integrating With Bat: You can also display the output of fzf in a beautiful way using bat via passing the --preview argument to fzf

     zsh

     fzf --preview "bat --color=always --style=numbers --line-range=:500 {}"

     Here is the result:

     

     You can use the arrow keys to navigate the files and Ctrl + arrow keys to navigate the code (file data).

   • Integrating With eza:

     You can setup shortcuts in your terminal emulator to make it easier to access the fuzzy finder along with .zshrc:

     Here is an example using Zsh (it is also similar in other shells): in your .zshrc file, add the following lines (easier than typing the whole string each time):

     zsh

     show_file_or_dir_preview="if [ -d {} ]; then eza --tree --color=always {} | head -200; else bat -n --color=always --line-range :500 {}; fi"
      
     export FZF_CTRL_T_OPTS="--preview '$show_file_or_dir_preview'"
     export FZF_ALT_C_OPTS="--preview 'eza --tree --color=always {} | head -200'"

     Now you can click Alt + c to preview subdirectories in the current directory:

     

     Similarly you can can click Ctrl + t to preview files in the current directory:

     

5. trash-cli

   trash-cli trashes files recording the original path, deletion date, and permissions. It uses the same trashcan used by KDE, GNOME, and XFCE, but you can invoke it from the command line (and scripts).
   trash-cli

   It provides these commands:

   zsh

   trash-put           trash files and directories.
   trash-empty         empty the trashcan(s).
   trash-list          list trashed files.
   trash-restore       restore a trashed file.
   trash-rm            remove individual files from the trashcan.

   Similar to previous commands it is a better rm where you can not delete an important file accidentally. If so you can find it in the trash can.

   Replacing rm with trash-cli:

   You can add aliases in the .zshrc to replace the rm command with trash-cli, while keeping you muscle memory too:

   Here are mine:

   zsh

   alias rm="trash"
   alias tl="trash-list"
   alias tr="trash-restore"
   alias te="trash-empty"

Automated Installation script

Here is a GitHup Repository created by me to automate the process. The Repository called dot-cli.

It Includes Two parts:

1. Full Installer.
2. individual Plugin Installer.

Here is how to use it:

1. Clone the Repository

   Clone this repository to your local machine:

   bash

   git clone https://github.com/syntaxbox/dot-cli
   cd dot-cli

2. Run the Installation Script

   Execute the install.sh script to install all the CLI tools presented in the repo:

   zsh

   chmod +x install.sh
   ./install.sh

3. Install individual CLI tools only

   If you want to install a specific CLI tool:

   For example eza, here is how:

   zsh

   chmod +x tools/eza.sh
   ./tools/eza.sh

Conclusion

These are the CLI Tools that I personally use daily.

Make sure to check out the official documentation for each CLI tool to see the customizations and the tweaks that you can make.

I will be updating this post whenever I find my self using a new CLI tool. See you around :)