Powerline: multi-line shell

Created on 24 Apr 2013 · 16Comments · Source: powerline/powerline

To achieve a two-line shell prompt I tried adding the following to "segment_data" for the shell configuration but it resulted in the triangle being placed on the next line.

    "cwd": {
        "after": "\n"
    }

Result:

Selection_029

core cshell enhancement

Source

treyhunner

Most helpful comment

https://github.com/yongjhih/rc/blob/master/.config/powerline/themes/shell/default.json for example.

yongjhih on 6 Nov 2015

👍12

All 16 comments

I can deduce some hacks to make it work, but here is another proposal: use

# Theme file
{
    "segments": {
        "above": [
            {
                "left": [
                    # First line left segments
                ],
                "right": [
                    # First line right segments
                ]
            },
            {
                # Same for second line
            }
        ],
        "left": [
            # Usual last line segments
        ],
        "right": [
            # Usual last line right segments
        ]
    }
}

(used YAML syntax to allow comments) where output will look like

First line left segments >   < First line right segments
Second line left segments >  < Second line right segments
Left segments > Typed text               < Right segments

@Lokaltog, how does this feel?

ZyX-I on 6 May 2013

👍4 ❤1

It could work pretty well. I think a more elegant solution could be to just have segments be a list, and each item in the list is an object which represents a line with the usual left/right keys. What do you think? It may be less obvious how it works without reading the docs (I can imagine users seeing the list and thinking each item is a segment and not a line), but not sure if that would be a huge problem.

Lokaltog on 6 May 2013

There are two reasons why I have it this way:

In any renderer but *sh ones† all lines except the last one must be ignored. This makes some line obviously special, but not enough to prefer my variant (you just warn and ignore all lines but some of them; not necessary last one).
In *sh renderers last line is special for another reason: it has cursor and space for typing text inbetween.

This way it would be better to somehow select last line, I prefer the above. We are still not having configuration proposed previously (don’t remember where) about reserving some width for typed text (neither we have working truncation in shells: because sides are computed separately). It would be natural if option for this only existed in a _special_ line and unnatural if it was valid only for last one.

† Unless we want to support multiline statusline patch that is created by some Japanese (AFAIR) vim user group.

By the way, there is a way to display prompt below cursor, though I guess there will be big problems with rendering (zsh also has a bunch of data like completion to display below prompt and it is needless to say you can easily write script that extends on more then one line).

ZyX-I on 6 May 2013

You make a good point, I agree with your initial suggestion.

Lokaltog on 7 May 2013

It seems like @treyhunner's solution for a separate line for the prompt no longer works. Here is the minimal configuration I used to test:

{
    "default_module": "powerline.segments.common",
    "segment_data": {
        "cwd": {
            "after": "\n$ "
        }
    },
    "segments": {
        "left": [
            {
                "name": "cwd"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Here is the result on the command line:

screen shot 2014-06-22 at 3 13 37 pm

I do not understand why the control-J (^J) character is in there.

gotgenes on 23 Jun 2014

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On June 23, 2014 2:15:13 AM GMT+03:00, Chris Lasher [email protected] wrote:

It seems like @treyhunner's solution for a separate line for the prompt
no longer works. Here is the minimal configuration I used to test:
{
  "default_module": "powerline.segments.common",
  "segment_data": {
      "cwd": {
          "after": "\n$ "
      }
  },
  "segments": {
      "left": [
          {
              "name": "cwd"
          }
      ]
  }
}
Here is the result on the command line:

I do not understand why the control-J (^J) character is in there.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline/issues/462#issuecomment-46794678

That solution was exploiting a bug that is no longer present. And you are wrong: CTRL-J character is not present there: control characters are not displayed in the terminal.

If you are asking why NL is replaced with '^J' then the answer is simple: because NL _is_ CTRL-J.
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ZyX-I on 23 Jun 2014

That solution was exploiting a bug that is no longer present.

There is no mention of the bug or its side effect anywhere else in this issue. That's fine though. So what's the new way to tell Powerline's shell component, "break the line"?

I want to put my prompt on a separate line than the information in the Powerline segments, as described at http://agperson.com/entry/4081. How do I do this, if the newline in "after" is now considered a bug exploit?

And you are wrong: CTRL-J character is not present there: control characters are not displayed in the terminal.

Fine, Powerline displays a "caret followed by a capital J", not a literal "Control-J", in lieu of a newline character. Based on the existing documentation I had to find by web searches, one of which led me to here, "caret followed by a capital J" was not the expected behavior.

gotgenes on 23 Jun 2014

There is no mention of the bug or its side effect anywhere else in this issue. That's fine though. So what's the new way to tell Powerline's shell component, "break the line"?

If there was this issue would be closed. Currently there is no way to have multiline prompt.

ZyX-I on 23 Jun 2014

@gotgenes Check out new multiline-prompt branch in git://github.com/ZyX-I/powerline.

ZyX-I on 23 Jun 2014

Note: I was testing my branch with

{
    "default_module": "powerline.segments.common",
    "segment_data": {
        "hostname": {
            "before": " ",
            "args": {
                "only_if_ssh": true
            }
        },
        "virtualenv": {
            "before": "ⓔ  "
        },
        "branch": {
            "before": " "
        }
    },
    "segments": {
        "above": [
            {
                "left": [
                    {
                        "name": "cwd"
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "string",
                        "highlight_group": "cwd",
                        "draw_soft_divider": false,
                        "draw_hard_divider": false,
                        "width": "auto"
                    }
                ],
                "right": [
                    {
                        "name": "user"
                    }
                ]
            }
        ],
        "left": [
            {
                "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                "name": "mode"
            },
            {
                "name": "hostname"
            },
            {
                "name": "user"
            },
            {
                "name": "virtualenv"
            },
            {
                "name": "cwd",
                "args": {
                    "use_path_separator": true,
                    "ellipsis": "…",
                    "dir_limit_depth": 3
                }
            },
            {
                "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                "name": "jobnum"
            }
        ],
        "right": [
            {
                "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                "name": "last_pipe_status"
            },
            {
                "name": "branch"
            }
        ]
    }
}

in ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/powerline/themes/shell/default.json.

ZyX-I on 23 Jun 2014

Why make "above" a special case; why not just make segments itself an array with objects containing "left" and/or "right"? Objects are rendered in order of appearance in the array as separate lines, from first to last.

Using your example above:

    "segments": [
        {
            "left": [
                {
                    "name": "cwd"
                },
                {
                    "type": "string",
                    "highlight_group": "cwd",
                    "draw_soft_divider": false,
                    "draw_hard_divider": false,
                    "width": "auto"
                }
            ],
            "right": [
                {
                    "name": "user"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "left": [
                {
                    "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                    "name": "mode"
                },
                {
                    "name": "hostname"
                },
                {
                    "name": "user"
                },
                {
                    "name": "virtualenv"
                },
                {
                    "name": "cwd",
                    "args": {
                        "use_path_separator": true,
                        "ellipsis": "…",
                        "dir_limit_depth": 3
                    }
                },
                {
                    "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                    "name": "jobnum"
                }
            ],
            "right": [
                {
                    "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                    "name": "last_pipe_status"
                },
                {
                    "name": "branch"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]

gotgenes on 23 Jun 2014

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

On June 23, 2014 10:38:10 AM GMT+03:00, Chris Lasher [email protected] wrote:

What "above" being a special case, why not just make segments itself an
array with objects containing "left" and/or "right"? Objects are
rendered in order of appearance in the array as separate lines, from
first to last.

You should read this issue from top, your question was already answered.

Using your example above:

   "segments": [
       {
           "left": [
               {
                   "name": "cwd"
               },
               {
                   "type": "string",
                   "highlight_group": "cwd",
                   "draw_soft_divider": false,
                   "draw_hard_divider": false,
                   "width": "auto"
               }
           ],
           "right": [
               {
                   "name": "user"
               }
           ]
       },
       {
           "left": [
               {
                   "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                   "name": "mode"
               },
               {
                   "name": "hostname"
               },
               {
                   "name": "user"
               },
               {
                   "name": "virtualenv"
               },
               {
                   "name": "cwd",
                   "args": {
                       "use_path_separator": true,
                       "ellipsis": "…",
                       "dir_limit_depth": 3
                   }
               },
               {
                   "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                   "name": "jobnum"
               }
           ],
           "right": [
               {
                   "module": "powerline.segments.shell",
                   "name": "last_pipe_status"
               },
               {
                   "name": "branch"
               }
           ]
       }
   ]

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline/issues/462#issuecomment-46810514

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