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

- Flags - -1 - -a (or) --all - -A (or) --almost-all - -d (or) --dirs - -f (or) --files - --help - -l (or) --long - --report - --tree (or) --tree=[DEPTH] - --gs (or) --git-status - --sd (or) --sort-dirs or --group-directories-first - --sf (or) --sort-files - -t - Combination of flags

• Installation
• Recommended configurations
• Custom configurations
• Updating
• Uninstallation
• Contributing
• License

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

• 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.

rbenv rehash
    rehash

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

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

Don't forget to restart your terminal

• Start using colorls :tada:

• 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.

Recommended configurations

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• 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.) :

alias lc='colorls -lA --sd'

• 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)

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:

mkdir -p ~/.config/colorls

And then

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

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

untracked: yellow

Or, using hex color codes:

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.

cp $(dirname $(gem which colorls))/yaml/files.yaml ~/.config/colorls/files.yaml</code></pre>
In the ~/.config/colorls/files.yaml file, add a new icon / change an existing icon, and save the change.

<pre><code class="lang-">swift: &quot;\uF179&quot;</code></pre>
User contributed alias configurations :

  - @rjhilgefort
Updating
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Want to update to the latest version of colorls?

<pre><code class="lang-sh">gem update colorls</code></pre>
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`.
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.