⚙️ Select

z-shell/zsh-select

A shell command that will display a selection list. It is similar to selecta, but uses curses library to do display, and when compared to fzf, the main difference is approximate matching instead of fuzzy matching.

It is written in Z shell and has its capabilities:

• Patterns, allowing multi-term searching
• Curses module
• Approximate matching Ctrl-F

The file zsh-select can be copied to any bin directory. Zsh will serve as say Ruby, and zsh-select will be a regular program available in the system.

Pressing o will make elements uniqe. To search again after pressing enter, press /. Approximate matching mode is activated by Ctrl-F.

Install Zsh Select

The zsh-select will be available in interactive Zsh sessions only when using this method. Nevertheless, integration with Vim and other methods will work when Zsh is your main shell.

Standalone

Simply copy file zsh-select to any bin directory such as /usr/local/bin.

Zi

Add the following to .zshrc. The plugin will be loaded next time you start Zsh. To update issue zi update z-shell/zsh-select from command line.

~/.zshrc

zi load z-shell/zsh-select

Zgen

Add the following to .zshrc and issue a zgen reset (this assumes that there is a proper zgen save construct in .zshrc).

~/.zshrc

zgen load z-shell/zsh-select

Vim

Adding the following snippet to .vimrc will provide a \f keyboard shortcut that will run zsh-select as file-selector.

Multi-term searching and approximate matching Ctrl-F will be available. The snippet is based on code from the selecta GitHub page (MIT license):

" Run a given vim command on the results of fuzzy selecting from a given shell
" command. See usage below.
function! ZshSelectCommand(choice_command, zshselect_args, vim_command)
  try
    let selection = system(a:choice_command . " | zsh-select " . a:zshselect_args)
  catch /Vim:Interrupt/
    " Swallow the ^C so that the redraw below happens; otherwise there will be
    " leftovers from zshselect on the screen
    redraw!
    return
  endtry
  redraw!
  exec a:vim_command . " " . selection
endfunction
" Find all files in all non-dot directories starting in the working directory.
" Fuzzy select one of those. Open the selected file with :e.
nnoremap <leader>f :call ZshSelectCommand("find * -type f 2>/dev/null", "", ":e")<cr>

Configuring

There are a few environment variables that can be set to alter zsh-select behavior.

The values assigned below are the defaults:

export ZSHSELECT_BOLD="1"                   # The interface will be drawn in bold font. Use "0" for no bold
export ZSHSELECT_COLOR_PAIR="white/black"   # Draw in white foreground, black background. Try e.g.: "white/green"
export ZSHSELECT_BORDER="0"                 # No border around interface, Use "1" for the border
export ZSHSELECT_ACTIVE_TEXT="reverse"      # Mark current element with reversed text. Use "underline" for marking with underline
export ZSHSELECT_START_IN_SEARCH_MODE="1"   # Starts Zsh Select with searching active. "0" will not invoke searching at the start.