colorls Documentation

A Ruby gem that beautifies the terminal's ls command, with color and font-awesome icons. :tada:

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CONTRIBUTING

Contribution guidelines

First of all, thanks for thinking of contributing to this project. :smile:

Before sending a Pull Request, please make sure that you're assigned the task on a GitHub issue.

  • If a relevant issue already exists, discuss on the issue and get it assigned to yourself on GitHub.
  • If no relevant issue exists, open a new issue and get it assigned to yourself on GitHub.

Please proceed with a Pull Request only after you're assigned. It'd be sad if your Pull Request (and your hardwork) isn't accepted just because it isn't ideologically compatible.

Developing the gem

  1. Install with

    sh
    git clone https://github.com/athityakumar/colorls
    cd colorls
    gem install bundler
    bundle install
  2. Make your changes in a different git branch (say, add-new-flag). These changes can be

    • adding better icons to YAML files
    • adding more flag options to the ruby gem.
  3. (Optional) To test whether colorls executable is working properly, do

    sh
    rake install

    Then install the gem file in the folder pkg. After that to use the new binary,

    sh
    colorls # start using colorls
  4. (Required for YAML file changes) These are the specifications for the YAML files -

    • files.yaml, folders.yaml : The keys are sorted alphabetically.
    • file_aliases.yaml, folder_aliases.yaml : The values are sorted alphabetically. For each set of keys mapping to a value, those set of keys are also sorted alphabetically.
  5. Check before pushing

    sh
    bundle exec rubocop
    bundle exec rspec
  6. (Required for new flags) Add command to .travis.yml file.

  7. (Required for new flags) Add flags to tab_complete.sh file.


README

Color LS




A Ruby script that colorizes the ls output with color and icons. Here are the screenshots of working example on an iTerm2 terminal (Mac OS), oh-my-zsh with powerlevel9k theme and powerline nerd-font + awesome-config font with the Solarized Dark color theme.

If you're interested in knowing the powerlevel9k configuration to get this prompt, have a look at this gist.

Table of contents

Usage

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Man pages have been added. Checkout man colorls.

Flags

  • With -1 : Lists one entry per line

  • With -a (or) --all : Does not ignore entries starting with '.'

  • With -A (or) --almost-all : Does not ignore entries starting with '.', except ./ and ../

  • With -d (or) --dirs : Shows only directories

  • With -f (or) --files : Shows only files

  • With --help : Prints a very helpful help menu

  • With -l (or) --long : Shows in long listing format

  • With --report : Shows brief report about number of files and folders shown

  • With --tree (or) --tree=[DEPTH] : Shows tree view of the directory with the specified depth (default 3)

  • With --gs (or) --git-status : Shows git status for each entry

  • With --sd (or) --sort-dirs or --group-directories-first : Shows directories first, followed by files

  • With --sf (or) --sort-files : Shows files first, followed by directories

  • With -t : Sort by modification time, newest first (NEED TO ADD IMAGE)

  • With color options : --light or --dark can be passed as a flag, to choose the appropriate color scheme. By default, the dark color scheme is chosen. In order to tweak any color, read Custom configurations.

Combination of flags

  • Using --gs with -t :

  • Using --gs with -l :

  • Using --sd with -l and -A :

  • Using --non-human-readable with -l :

    • This will print the file sizes in bytes (non-human readable format)

Installation

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  1. Install Ruby (preferably, version >= 2.6 via a version manager like rbenv)

  2. Download and install a Nerd Font so you can see the library icons. Have a look at the Nerd Font README for installation instructions. We're using "Hack Nerd Font" for this guide.

    Note for MacOS users using the stock terminal - Please enable Nerd Font at Terminal > Preferences > Profiles > Text > Font. Click Change.. and select Hack Nerd Font - Regular

    Note for iTerm2 users - Please enable the Nerd Font at iTerm2 > Preferences > Profiles > Text > Non-ASCII font > Hack Regular Nerd Font Complete.

    Note for HyperJS users - Please add "Hack Nerd Font" Font as an option to fontFamily in your ~/.hyper.js file.

  3. Install the colorls ruby gem with gem install colorls

    Note for rbenv users - In case of load error when using lc, please try the below patch.

    sh
    rbenv rehash
    rehash
  4. Enable tab completion for flags by entering following line to your shell configuration file (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc) :

    bash
    source $(dirname $(gem which colorls))/tab_complete.sh

    Don't forget to restart your terminal

  5. Start using colorls :tada:

  6. Have a look at Recommended configurations and Custom configurations.

If you're having trouble following the installation guide above, here's a video reproducing steps 2 to 6.

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  1. To add some short command (say, lc) with some flag options (say, -l, -A, --sd) by default, add this to your shell configuration file (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.) :

    sh
    alias lc='colorls -lA --sd'
  2. For changing the icon(s) to other unicode icons of choice (select icons from here), change the YAML files in a text editor of your choice (say, subl)

    sh
    subl $(dirname $(gem which colorls))/yaml

Custom configurations

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You can overwrite the existing icons and colors mapping by copying the yaml files from $(dirname $(gem which colorls))/yaml into ~/.config/colorls, and changing them.

  • To overwrite color mapping :

    Please have a look at the list of supported color names. You may also use a color hex code as long as it is quoted within the YAML file and prefaced with a # symbol.

    Let's say that you're using the dark color scheme and would like to change the color of untracked file (??) in the --git-status flag to yellow. Copy the defaut dark_colors.yaml and change it.

    Check if the ~/.config/colorls directory exists. If it doesn't exist, create it using the following command:

    sh
    mkdir -p ~/.config/colorls

    And then

    sh
    cp $(dirname $(gem which colorls))/yaml/dark_colors.yaml ~/.config/colorls/dark_colors.yaml

    In the ~/.config/colorls/dark_colors.yaml file, change the color set for untracked from darkorange to yellow, and save the change.

    text
    untracked: yellow

    Or, using hex color codes:

    text
    untracked: '#FFFF00'
  • To overwrite icon mapping :

    Please have a look at the list of supported icons. Let's say you want to add an icon for swift files. Copy the default files.yaml and change it.

    sh
    cp $(dirname $(gem which colorls))/yaml/files.yaml ~/.config/colorls/files.yaml`

    In the ~/.config/colorls/files.yaml file, add a new icon / change an existing icon, and save the change.

    text
    swift: "\uF179"
  • User contributed alias configurations :

Updating

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Want to update to the latest version of colorls?

sh
gem update colorls

Uninstallation

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Want to uninstall and revert back to the old style? No issues (sob). Please feel free to open an issue regarding how we can enhance colorls.

sh
gem uninstall colorls

Contributing

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Your contributions are always welcome! Please have a look at the contribution guidelines first. :tada:

License

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The MIT License (MIT) 2017 - Athitya Kumar. Please have a look at the LICENSE.md for more details.