-AX-ZSH: Alex' Modular ZSH Configuration
-=======================================
+# AX-ZSH: Alex' Modular ZSH Configuration
AX-ZSH is a modular configuration system for the Z shell (ZSH).
It provides sane defaults and is extendable by plugins.
-Installation
-------------
+## Installation
To install AX-ZSH, either download a source archive or use Git to clone it.
Afterwards use the `install.sh` script inside of the source directory to set
up the `~/.axzsh` directory.
-When using Git it is best to directly clone the AX-ZSH repository into the
-`~/.axzsh` directory and call `install.sh` from this location.
+Prerequisites:
-Clone repository from _GitHub_ (<https://github.com/alexbarton/ax-zsh>):
+* [ZSH](https://www.zsh.org/) – obviously ;-)
+* [Git](https://git-scm.com/) (optional but recommended!)
- git clone https://github.com/alexbarton/ax-zsh.git ~/.axzsh
+Installing AX-ZSH is a two-step process:
-Then run the installer script:
-
- ~/.axzsh/install.sh
+1. Clone or copy the source files into `~/.axzsh`,
+2. Run the `~/.axzsh/install.sh` script.
The `install.sh` script creates symbolic links for `~/.zprofile`, `~/.zshrc`,
`~/.zlogin`, and `~/.zlogout` (don't worry, already existing files are backed
up).
-Now close and restart all your running ZSH session to activate AX-ZSH.
+Then close all running ZSH sessions and restart them to activate AX-ZSH. And
+maybe change your default shell to ZSH if you haven't already?
-To update AX-ZSH run `axzshctl upgrade`.
+For example like this:
-AX-ZSH & Local ZSH Configuration
---------------------------------
+```sh
+# Set new default shell
+chsh -s $(command -v zsh)
-Plugins are loaded when they are linked into the `$AXZSH/active_plugins/`
-directory; see the _Customization_ section below for how to activate them.
+# Replace running shell with a ZSH login shell
+exec $(command -v zsh) -l
+```
-Don't modify `~/.zprofile`, `~/.zshrc`, `~/.zlogin`, or `~/.zlogout`! These
-are links to "AX-ZSH"-private files that can become overwritten when updating.
+### Installation using Git
-You can use the following files for local ZSH configuration:
+When using Git, the preferred method, it is best to directly clone the AX-ZSH
+repository into the `~/.axzsh` directory and call `install.sh` from this
+location:
-1. AX-ZSH doesn't use `~/.zshenv` in any way. So you can use this file for your
- own purposes (for example, to set up some environment variables that AX-ZSH
- relies on).
+```sh
+git clone https://github.com/alexbarton/ax-zsh.git ~/.axzsh
+~/.axzsh/install.sh
+```
-2. AX-ZSH reads the optional files `~/.zprofile.local`, `~/.zshrc.local`,
- `~/.zlogin.local`, and `~/.zlogout.local` after its own core initialization
- files when present.
+### Installation without Git
+
+*Note:* If you do not install AX-ZSH with Git, you will not be able to upgrade
+itself afterwards with the integrated `axzsh upgrade` command!
+
+```sh
+curl -Lo ax-zsh-master.zip https://github.com/alexbarton/ax-zsh/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
+unzip ax-zsh-master.zip
+mv ax-zsh-master ~/.axzsh
+~/.axzsh/install.sh
+```
+
+## Upgrade
+
+When you used Git to install AX-ZSH (and/or plugins), you can use the `axzshctl`
+command to upgrade AX-ZSH itself and external plugins like this:
+
+```sh
+axzshctl upgrade
+```
+
+## Usage
+
+AX-ZSH comes with a hopefully sane default configuration and can be extended
+using plugins. Different types of plugins are supported:
+
+* Plugins shipped with AX-ZSH.
+* Themes shipped with AX-ZSH.
+* 3rd-party plugins:
+ * installed manually into `$AXZSH/custom_plugins`
+ * stand-alone plugins stored on GitHub
+ * plugins of OhMyZsh from its GitHub repository
+* 3rd-party themes:
+ * installed manually into `$AXZSH/custom_themes`
+ * some stand-alone themes stored on GitHub
+
+### Check whether all locally available "useful" plug-ins are activated
+
+Most plugins can be enabled even when the commands they work with aren't
+available and won't do any harm. But to keep ZSH startup times low, you should
+only enable plugins that are useable on your local system and which you actually
+plan to use.
+
+You can use the following command to let AX-ZSH scan the status of all locally
+available plugins:
+
+```sh
+axzshctl check-plugins
+```
+
+It will summarize the status of all enabled plugins, and suggest to enable
+plugins which seem to make sense on the system and to disable enabled plugins
+that seem not to be supported (for example because of missing dependencies).
+
+### List enabled plugins
+
+Run the following command to list all currently enabled plugins:
+
+```sh
+axzshctl list-enabled
+```
+
+### Enable plugins
+
+AX-ZSH comes with a sane "core ZSH configuration", but it can show its true
+strengths when enabling additional plugins for additional tools and commands
+that are available on your system and you want to use.
+
+Different types of plugins are supported (see the introduction to the section
+"_usage_" above) which are differentiated by their identifier:
+
+* `<name>`: locally available plugin, either bundled with AX-ZSH itself, or
+ installed manually (see below).
+* `<repository>/<name>`: stand-alone GitHub repository.
+* `@ohmyzsh/<name>`: [OhMyZsh](https://ohmyz.sh/) plugin from the OhMyZsh GitHub
+ repository (see <https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/tree/master/plugins>).
+
+You can enable one or more plugins like this:
-Customization
--------------
+```sh
+axzshctl enable-plugin <identifier> [<identifier> […]]
+```
-Use the `axzshctl` tool to enable, disable, and reset plugins. AXZSH
-initializes an alias which points to the actual location in `~/.axzsh/bin/`.
+Hint: _Tab-completion_ works for sub-commands and already locally available
+plugin names!
-See `axzshctl --help` for details.
+Some examples:
+
+```sh
+# Enable some plugins bundled with AX-ZSH:
+axzshctl enable-plugin editor_select git ssh_autoadd
+
+# Enable the Powerlevel10k "theme plugin" from GitHub, see
+# <https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k>:
+axzshctl enable-plugin romkatv/powerlevel10k
+
+# Enable the "fast-syntax-highlighting" plugin from GitHub, see
+# <https://github.com/zdharma/fast-syntax-highlighting>:
+axzshctl enable-plugin zdharma/fast-syntax-highlighting
+
+# Enable the Git and tmux plugins of OhMyZsh:
+axzshctl enable-plugin @ohmyzsh/git @ohmyzsh/tmux
+```
+
+#### Custom local plugins
You can link custom plugins stored in arbitrary directories using `axzshctl`
by specifying the complete path name. Or you can place additional plugins into
-the `~/.axzsh/custom_plugins` folder which is searched by the `axzshctl` tool
+the `$AXZSH/custom_plugins` folder which is searched by the `axzshctl` tool
by default.
In addition you can set the `AXZSH_PLUGIN_D` variable (and `ZSH_CUSTOM` like
"OhMyZsh") to specify additional plugin search directories.
-Environment Variables
----------------------
+### Disable plugins
+
+Run the following command to disable a currently enabled plugin:
+
+```sh
+axzshctl disable-plugin <identifier> [<identifier> […]]
+```
+
+Hint: _Tab-completion_ works for sub-commands and plugin names!
+
+### Update plugin cache
+
+AX-ZSH uses a "plugin cache" to speedup ZSH start times. This cache is
+automatically updated when using the `axzshctl` sub-commands, for example when
+enabling or disabling plugins, or when upgrading the AX-ZSH installation and
+all plugins.
+
+But you *have to* update the cache when manually installing plugins or during
+development of a own local plugin after updating its code!
+
+Run the following command to update the AX-ZSH cache:
+
+```sh
+axzshctl update-caches
+```
+
+### Other `axzshctl` sub-commands
+
+Please run `axzshctl --help` to get a full list of a available sub-commands:
+
+```sh
+axzshctl --help
+```
+
+## AX-ZSH & local ZSH configuration
+
+Don't modify `~/.zprofile`, `~/.zshrc`, `~/.zlogin`, or `~/.zlogout`! These
+are links to "AX-ZSH"-private files that can become overwritten when updating.
+
+You can use the following files for local ZSH configuration:
+
+1. AX-ZSH doesn't use `~/.zshenv` in any way. So you can use this file for your
+ own purposes (for example, to set up some environment variables that AX-ZSH
+ relies on).
+
+2. AX-ZSH reads the optional files `~/.zprofile.local`, `~/.zshrc.local`,
+ `~/.zlogin.local`, and `~/.zlogout.local` after its own core initialization
+ files when present.
+
+## Environment variables
Expected to be already set:
Validated and/or set up by core plugins:
-* `AXZSH`
+* `AXZSH` – AX-ZSH installation directory
* `HOST`
* `HOSTNAME` (same as HOST, deprecated)
* `LOCAL_HOME`
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