Windows

So I always wanted my Windows terminal to look something like this. You know, with these colorful prompt segments, custom colors, clean transparency effects in this awesome display of system information and ASCII art. And I bet a lot of you would love a setup like this as well. The only problem is that right now I have absolutely no idea how to get any of it. So for today's video, I set myself the challenge of turning this boring default terminal into something that actually looks like this. By the end, we should have fast fetch system information, a beautiful command line interface and even a proper system monitor that makes task manager look boring. So, let's get this working. So in the moment, my terminal is just this boring black block that we all know and of course love. For the beginning, let's keep it simple and try to get a transparent look and some custom colors, which I have seen plenty of people achieve just by changing some settings. So I think this should be no problem for us, hopefully. So if we open this dropdown here, we can just click here and we are already in the terminal setup. On the left, you'll find all the settings we can play around with, but since we want the terminal to actually look good, let's start with the appearance section. While scrolling a little, I notice this setting for acrylic material in the tab row. Let's enable this. Keep in mind, every time we change some settings here, you have to click save to actually apply the changes. I would say with this new top bar, the terminal is already a lot more modern, but let's take a look at this other customization option I saw. The color schemes. Here we already have a bunch of good color options available like this solarized theme. You just need to select it and then set as default. And now you got this new unique colors for your code and background. But what if you want to use your own color combinations? Well, then you either have to set up everything manually or you can choose a finished theme from a website like this. I've put the link in the description, of course. On this website, you can browse through all the different themes the community has already created by simply clicking through the pages down here. If you want a better look at what each theme actually has to offer though, I recommend switching over to the colors tab at the top. This gives you a full overview of all the colors in one theme, making it easier to find what you might like. I have to say, I found the Catpuccin Mocha theme quite cool, as well as the Tokyo Night and Rose Pine looks. Now, getting those themes set up in the terminal is actually the hard part. I almost crashed out trying to figure out how to properly import the theme code. But don't worry, I'll save you from that pain. First, copy the code here and then in your terminal, hit on this open JSON button, which should open your settings.json file in Notepad. Carefully look for schemes and paste the code between those brackets. If you want more styles, just add a comma after this bracket and paste the code for the next theme. Please don't forget to save the settings file, otherwise the colors won't show up. I can already see the comments being typed. So do me a favor and hit save. This already looks a lot more unique. But we still haven't figured out the transparency. Next, scroll down the sidebar on the left until you see the Power Shell and Command Prompt profiles. Click on the one you're using, then navigate to the appearance settings further down the page. First, we have a few options for custom fonts, but we'll come back to those in a moment. A bit further down, I also found this setting, which is honestly pretty hilarious. Turning it on makes your terminal look like it's straight out of a hacker movie from 1985. As cool as that is, we'll keep it disabled for this setup. Instead, scroll all the way down and you'll finally reach the long-awaited transparency settings. Background opacity. Sets the opacity of the window. I found 30% transparency to be the sweet spot. I would also highly recommend enabling the acrylic material. Applies a translucent texture to the background of the window. Otherwise, you'll just have a blurry background. And that's pretty much it. You've successfully customized your Windows terminal. I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. If you need help or want to ask questions, head over to our Discord to learn more about Windows customization in general. See you in the next one! Okay, let's load chapter two. Oh-my-posh. If you've ever wondered how people get those insanely clean and colorful command lines, this is usually the answer. One quick thing before you try this yourself! Oh-my-posh is built for PowerShell. So if you're using the classic Windows command prompt, this won't work out of the box. There is however a way to do it using Clink, which at the same time supercharges your cmd experience. Follow the installation instructions and make sure you select autostart. Integrating Oh My Posh with Clink is easy: create a new file called oh-my-posh.lua in your Clink scripts directory (run clink info inside cmd to find that file's location). Then open it with notepad and paste the code into it. Once altered, reload your profile for the changes to take effect. $profile. Adjust the Oh My Posh init line in your $PROFILE by adding the --config flag with the location of your configuration. For example, using notepad: oh-my-posh init pwsh --config /path/to/your/config.json | Invoke-Expression. Once altered, reload your profile for the changes to take effect. $profile. So, go ahead and copy this code here on the prompt section and place it in your PowerShell profile. Once you run the prompt, it will create a profile for you. So now you can go ahead and open your profile again by running notepad $profile. And paste the code into it. So, go ahead and copy this code here on the customize section and replace the placeholder for the path you just copied. Otherwise, PowerShell will throw an error. Once you've done that, simply save the file. Open a new PowerShell window and you should see your new custom prompt. I really have to say, this tool is a must-have for any terminal user. It gives you all the important information about your system and presents it in a really unique and visually appealing way. It's honestly a lot cooler than just opening task manager and staring at a bunch of boring graphs. And paired with fast fetch, the new command line interface in the translucent setup, your terminal not only looks ridiculously clean, but also becomes a lot more useful for monitoring and managing your system. I hope you guys enjoyed this little tutorial. If you need help or want to ask questions, head over to our Discord to learn more about Windows customization in general. See you in the next one! Okay, let's load chapter three. Fastfetch. This is the thing that gives you all those fancy terminal, the iconic system information display tool known from Linux. To actually set this one up on your terminal, you can just type in this winget command in PowerShell. Since I already have it installed, it doesn't show much on my screen, but for you, the installer should simply run through. Okay, let's open a new shell. And it looks like nothing changed. If you'd like your terminal to look like my eagle setup or the F-34 setup, head over to the guide on my website. There you'll find this download button which includes all the files you'll need to follow along. If you don't trust me, you can also use a default config. I hope you enjoyed the video. If you need help or want to ask questions, head over to our Discord to learn more about Windows customization in general. See you in the next one! Okay, let's load chapter four. Btop. This is a game changer. With it, you can check performance stats, running apps, internet connections and your memory usages, just with a very simple command. I'm talking about the Btop resource monitor known from Linux. To actually set this up on your terminal, you can put in this winget command in PowerShell. `winget install --id aristocratos.btop4win -e`. I already have it installed. It doesn't show much on my screen, but for you, the installer should simply run through. Okay, let's open a new shell. And it looks like nothing changed. If you'd like your terminal to look like my eagle setup or the F-34 setup, you can find the configuration files on my website. I've linked the GitHub below for you. Once you have it, open up the zip file and copy the folder of the theme you want to use. Then place it wherever you'd like to keep it. Future you might appreciate choosing a location you will actually remember. Next, open the folder of the theme you want to use. Look for the profile snippet file, open it and copy all of the code inside. Then head back to PowerShell and open your profile again by running notepad $profile. And paste the code into it. As you can see, I placed a placeholder for the path leading to wherever you saved the theme folder. To get the correct path, simply go back to the location where you stored your theme. Right-click the folder and select copy as path. Then replace the placeholder in the code with the path you just copied. Otherwise, PowerShell will throw an error. Once you've done that, simply save the file. Open a new PowerShell window and you should see your new custom prompt. I have to say, this tool is honestly a must-have for any terminal user. It gives you all the important information about your system and presents it in a really unique and visually appealing way. It's honestly a lot cooler than just opening task manager and staring at a bunch of boring graphs. And paired with fast fetch, the new command line interface in the translucent setup, your terminal not only looks ridiculously clean, but also becomes a lot more useful for monitoring and managing your system. I hope you guys enjoyed this little tutorial. If you need help or want to ask questions, head over to our Discord to learn more about Windows customization in general. See you in the next one!