CMD Powerline

Introduction

Simple and easily customisable Powerline for Windows Command Prompt.

Setup

Prerequisite: A font supporting Powerline symbols needs to be installed.

Firstly, choose a desired location (e.g. %HOME%\.cmd\) and clone the latest branch into the directory:

> git clone -b latest --depth 1 https://github.com/wise0704/cmd-powerline.git

If you want to download a specific version, then supply the version tag from the releases instead of the latest branch:

> git clone -b <version> --depth 1 https://github.com/wise0704/cmd-powerline.git

Alternatively, you can download the repository as a .zip file and extract it into the directory.

Now, whenever you want to call cmd for an interactive window, call cmd /k "path\to\cmd-powerline\init.cmd" instead. Make sure path\to\cmd-powerline is the location you cloned the repository into.

You can append extra arguments to select the style profiles to apply. See configuring styles.cmd.

Example: Windows Terminal

1. Open settings, and navigate to the "Command Prompt" profile.
2. Change the "Command line" value from ...\cmd.exe to ...\cmd.exe /k "path\to\cmd-powerline\init.cmd".
3. Save the changes.

Example: VS Code

1. Open settings, and navigate to Terminal > Integrated > Profiles: Windows ("terminal.integrated.profiles.windows").
2. Edit the value in settings.json.
3. Modify "args" of "Command Prompt" to ["/k", "path\\to\\cmd-powerline\\init.cmd"]. (Make sure the backslashes are escaped in the JSON file.)

(Not Recommended) Using Registry

Optionally, you can add/modify the (HKLM|HKCU)\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun key to run init.cmd. This way, any instance of a Command Prompt window will have the Powerline set up.

However, do note that modifying the AutoRun key is not recommended. Although code contains checks to ensure that init.cmd will only run on an interactive window, there may still be bugs due to the nature of the AutoRun key.

Additionally, you should modify or clear out the content of header.cmd, as the original header text will be displayed as usual with this method.

Configuration

header.cmd

This file is executed once when the init.cmd is called. Since calling cmd with the argument /k skips the header text that would normally be displayed upon opening a new Command Prompt window, the default behaviour of the file is to mimic the header text.

If you prefer to have a different header text or no header at all, simply edit or delete this file.

styles.cmd

This is where you can customise the styles in detail. The configuration is done in two parts: profiles and segments.

Segments are the definitions of sections of text, and profiles are the definitions of how to arrange the segments.

When initialisation is done by calling init.cmd with no arguments, it loads the p_default profile. Profile names passed as arguments to init.cmd (without the prefix "p_") will apply the profiles in the order.

For example, init.cmd default detailed newline will apply p_default, p_detailed and p_newline profiles in that order.

You can add/edit individual profiles and sections, including the default profile.

Profiles

• segments: A space-separated list of segments:color or "text":color.

  • segment: Specify the segment name(s) without the prefix "s_". Multiple segments can be joined with the - delimiter.

  • "text": Alternatively, text can be entered directly using double quotes. However, this direct text cannot contain any special characters or variables holding special characters.

  • color: A colour code pair for foreground and background. See wikipedia.

    • Standard: A pair of 1-digit hexadecimal numbers — 0~7.
    • High intensity: A pair of 1-digit hexadecimal numbers — 8~F.
    • Grayscale: A pair of 2-digit octal numbers from black to white — 00~27.
    • 666 cube: A pair of 3-digit heximal (base 6) numbers of RGB — 000~555.
    • 24-bit: A pair of 6-digit hexadecimal numbers of RGB — 000000~FFFFFF

    Colour can be omitted, in which case it defaults to either the colours specified in the segment definition, or 00.

• separator: A character to append at the end of each section. For example, the right-facing-triangle character U+E0B0 (Powerline font symbol).

• margin: String to append to the end of the powerline. Usually a space, or a newline followed by a '>' or '$'. Use the escape characters of PROMPT. See microsoft docs.

Segments

• text: The text of the segment. Special characters need to be escaped using the PROMPT escape characters. See microsoft docs. More information below.
• var (Optional): Dynamic evaluation variable. More information below.
• cmd (Optional): Dynamic evaluation command. More information below.
• fore (Optional):
• back (Optional): The default foreground/background colours for the segment. They will be overridden by the explicit colour specifiers of profiles.

Segments can have constants, variables or dynamic evaluations.

• A constant segment has a constant text that is evaluated at the initialisation phase.

  For example, text=$S%USERNAME%@%COMPUTERNAME%$S.

  The variables %USERNAME% and %COMPUTERNAME% are evaluated only once when the script is loaded.

• Segments can also have variables that are evaluated on update. They need to have their %s doubled to escape evaluation on initialisation.

  For example, text=$S%%DATE%%$S.

• Dynamic evaluations have three parts: variable, command and text. They are essentially evaluated by the for /f command.

  for /f %var% in (!cmd!) do ...%text%

  Thus,

  • var can contain the options for for /f.

    For example, var="tokens=1,2" %%i.

    Note that % needs to be doubled within the batch script.

  • cmd needs to be surrounded by single quotes '...', or backticks `...` if the option "usebackq" is supplied in var.

  • cmd needs to have special characters (%^&<>|'`,;=()!) escaped.

  • text can then use the introduced variable(s).

    For example, text=%%i-%%j.

How it works

The script simply uses DOSKEY to hijack "cd" and "git", so whenever they are run, update.cmd gets called to update the prompt text.

Any variables introduced will have a PL_ prefix. You can type set PL_ to see the list.