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Rocking Zsh: directory specific shell profiles – Screencast

The “Directory specific shell configuration with Zsh” is a rocking feature I use in all my projects when working on the command line. I just created a screencast where I’m showing this feature in action, including its configuration:

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Since its my first screencast please let me know what you think of it. Waste of time? Want to see further screencasts about Zsh, Grml,…? Is there any other platform than YouTube better suited for such screencasts (for the creator as well as the visitor’s point of view)? Is there anything specific I might consider changing in upcoming screencasts?

7 Responses to “Rocking Zsh: directory specific shell profiles – Screencast”

  1. rodrigo Says:

    Very nice use of zsh, I didn’t knew you could do that. Just for the record, every time you switch profiles by entering into a project’s directory, that profile remains current until you go into another directory with a specific profile. Therefore, if I want to have a “general profile” that applies whenever I’m not inside one of my projects I would create a profile for the $HOME dir, right?

  2. rjc Says:

    Being primarily visual I personally would like to see more screencasts about zsh and other software. Like this one.
    Tip: pump up the volume a bit.
    Question: what did you use to create that screencast?

    Ta,

    rjc

  3. mika Says:

    @rodrigo: jepp, that’s exactly what you could do then

    @rjc: thanks for your feedback, I’ll try to pump up the volume in the future :) I used screenflow (http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview.htm) for the screencast

    regards,
    -mika-

  4. stepardo Says:

    What about exports that are in one profile only. Is there a way to automatically unset these when changing to other profiles?

    In your screencast, you set the debian email environment variable, which would also be set in profile “PhD” if you follow these steps:
    $ cd Projects/Debian
    $ cd –
    $ cd Projects/PhD

    Another question: I experimented with having different history files per profile. Do you know a way to do this reliably (unfortunately I lost my history while experimenting, had to restore it from backup).

  5. Julius Plenz Says:

    Hi mika! I like the idea of Z shell screencasts a lot. I’m very interested in what good tips you’ll be telling us about in the (hopefully) upcoming casts! :-)

    Choice of youtube is good I think; you should consider including minimal config examples for the features you show. (I see there are some in the linked Blog post, so that’s just for upcoming casts.)

    Keep up the good work :-)

  6. mika Says:

    @stepardo: excellent point, thanks for mentioning that. Yes, if you want to apply configuration just to one single profile you should make sure it’s unset in other profiles. That’s a bit annoying, though once you’re aware of it you can use it as a feature. ;) Very nice idea to use different history files in profiles, I like that! Never tried that but would be fun to do so, not sure whether I manage to look at it those days, if you’ve something working please share it too!

    @Julius: thanks for your feedback. Providing minimal config examples is something that’s a bit annoying when using youtube as a platform, I very much like the way http://railscasts.com/ does it. :) But I’ll keep that in mind, thanks!

    regards,
    -mika-

  7. Karl Says:

    Thanks for the great screencast! zsh rulez even more :-)