PSCompletions

✨PSCompletions(psc)✨

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Introduce

[!Tip]

• PowerShell(pwsh): A cross-platform PowerShell. Start it by running pwsh/pwsh.exe.
• Windows PowerShell: A PowerShell which is built-in on Windows system. Start it by running powershell/powershell.exe.
• They can both use PSCompletions, but PowerShell(pwsh) is more recommended.

A completion manager for better and simpler use completions in PowerShell.

• Manage completions together.
• Switch between languages(en-US,zh-CN,…) freely.
• Sort completion items dynamically by frequency of use.
• More powerful completion menu.
  • Flexible configurations can control its behaviors.
  • Check them via psc menu config.
• Combined with argc-completions.

Demo

[!Tip]

• If it cannot be displayed here, you can check it on the official website..
• Click to view the videos on Bilibili.

What’s new

• See the CHANGELOG for details.

FAQ

• See the FAQ.

How to install

1. Start PowerShell.

2. Install module:

   • Normal:

     Install-Module PSCompletions -Scope CurrentUser
     

   • Install silently:

     Install-Module PSCompletions -Scope CurrentUser -Repository PSGallery -Force
     

   • Use Scoop:

     • Add the abyss bucket via Github or Gitee.

     • Install it.

       scoop install abyss/abgox.PSCompletions
       

3. Import module:

   Import-Module PSCompletions
   

   • Add it to your $PROFILE to make it permanent by running the following command.

     echo "Import-Module PSCompletions" >> $PROFILE
     

   • Note: Recommend add Import-Module PSCompletions early in $PROFILE to avoid the encoding issue.
   • About the completion trigger key.

How to uninstall

1. Start PowerShell.
2. Uninstall module:

   Uninstall-Module PSCompletions
   

How to use

[!Tip]

• Available Completions.
• If it doesn’t include the completion you want, you can submit an issue.
• You can also combined with argc-completions.

Take git as an example.

1. psc add git
2. Then you can enter git, press Space and Tab key to get command completion.
3. For more usages on psc, you just need to enter psc, press Space and Tab key, and you will get all usages of psc by reading the completion tip.

Contribution

• See the CONTRIBUTING for details.

Tips

About the completion trigger key

• PSCompletions uses the Tab key by default.
• You can set it by running psc menu config trigger_key <key>.

[!Warning]

• If you need to set Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Key <key> -Function <MenuComplete|Complete>
• Please add it before Import-Module PSCompletions

• Example:

  Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Key Tab -Function MenuComplete
  
  Import-Module PSCompletions
  

About completion update

• When PSCompletions module is imported after starting PowerShell, it will start a background job to check for the completion status of the remote repository.
• After getting the update, PSCompletions will show the latest status of the completions in the next time.

About option completion

• Optional Completions: some command completions that like -*, such as --global in git config --global.
• You should use option completion first.
• Taking git as an example, if you want to enter git config user.name --global xxx, you should use --global completion first, and then use user.name, and then enter the name xxx.
• For options ending with =, if there’s completion definition, you can directly press the Tab key to get the completions.

About completion menu

• In addition to the built-in completion menu of PowerShell, PSCompletions module also provides a more powerful completion menu.

  • Setting: psc menu config enable_menu 1 (Default: 1)
• Available Windows environment:
  • PowerShell
  • Windows PowerShell
    • Due to rendering problems of Windows PowerShell, the border style of the completion menu cannot be customized.
      • If you need to customize it, use PowerShell.

• Some keys in the module’s completion menu.

  1. Apply the selected completion item: Enter / Space
     • You can also use Tab when there’s only one completion.
  2. Delete filter characters: Backspace
  3. Exit the completion menu: Esc / Ctrl + c
     • You can also use Backspace when there’re no characters in the filter area.

  4. Select completion item:

     Select previous item	Select next item
     Up	Down
     Left	Right
     Shift + Tab	Tab
     Ctrl + u	Ctrl + d
     Ctrl + p	Ctrl + n

• All configurations of it, you can trigger completion by running psc menu, then learn about them by the completion tip.
  • For configured values, 1 means true and 0 means false. (It applies to all configurations of PSCompletions)
  • Some common menu behaviors:
    • Auto-apply when there’s only one completion item: psc menu config enable_enter_when_single 1
    • Hide the completion tip: psc menu config enable_tip 0
    • Use prefix matching for filtering: psc menu config enable_prefix_match_in_filter 1
      • If it is 0, fuzzy matching is used, and the * and ? wildcards are supported.
    • Set the completion suffix: psc menu config completion_suffix " "
    • …

About menu enhance

• Setting: psc menu config enable_menu_enhance 1 (Default: 1)

• Now, PSCompletions has two completion implementations.

  • Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler
    • It’s used by default.
      • Requires: enable_menu and enable_menu_enhance both set to 1.
    • It no longer needs to loop through registering Register-ArgumentCompleter for all completions, which theoretically makes loading faster.
    • It use TabExpansion2 to manage completions globally, not limited to those added by psc add.
      • For example:
        • Path completion such as cd/.\/..\/~\/… in PowerShell.
        • Build-in commands such as Get-*/Set-*/New-*/… in PowerShell.
        • Completion registered by Register-ArgumentCompleter
        • Combined with argc-completions.
        • Completion registered by cli or module.
        • …
  • Register-ArgumentCompleter
    • You can use it by running psc menu config enable_menu_enhance 0.
    • It only works for completions added by psc add.
    • Other completions are controlled by Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Key <key> -Function <MenuComplete|Complete>.

About special symbols

[!Tip]

• Due to future changes in Windows Terminal, 😄🤔😎 will not be displayed properly in the completion menu, so these three default special symbols will change.
• Related issue: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/18242
• The changes are as follows:
  • 😄 => ~
  • 🤔 => ?
  • 😎 => !

• Special symbols after the completion item are used to let you know in advance if completions are available before you press the Tab key.

  • They only exist in completions added by psc add.
  • You can hide them by replacing them with the empty string.
    • psc menu symbol SpaceTab ""
    • psc menu symbol OptionTab ""
    • psc menu symbol WriteSpaceTab ""

• ~,?,! : If there are multiple, you can choose the effect of one of them.

  • Define them:
    • Normal Completions: Sub-commands. Such as add/pull/push/commit/… in git.
    • Optional Completions: Optional parameters. Such as -g/-u/… in git add.
    • General Optional Completions: General optional parameters that can be used with any command. Such as --help/… in git.
    • Current Completions: Current completion items in completion menu.
  • ~ : It means that after you apply it, you can press Space and Tab key to continue to get completions.
    • It can be customized by running psc menu symbol SpaceTab <symbol>
  • ? : It means that after you apply it (Optional Completions or General Optional Completions), you can press Space and Tab key to continue to get Current Completions.
    • It can be customized by running psc menu symbol OptionTab <symbol>
  • ! : It means that after you apply it (Optional Completions or General Optional Completions), you can press Space and enter a string, then press Space and Tab key to continue to get completions.
    • If the string has Spaces, Please use "(quote) or '(single quote) to wrap it. e.g. "test content"
    • If there’s also ~, it means that there’s some preset completions, you can press Space and Tab key to continue to get them without entering a string.
    • It can be customized by running psc menu symbol WriteSpaceTab <symbol>
  • All completions can be triggered by pressing the Tab key after entering a part.

About completion tip

• The completion tip is only a helper, you can also disable the tip by running psc menu config enable_tip 0

  • To enable the completion tip, run psc menu config enable_tip 1.
  • You can also disable the tip for a specific completion, such as psc.
    • psc completion psc enable_tip 0

• General structure of the completion tip: Usage + Description + Example

  U: install|add [-g|-u] [options] <app>
  This is a description of the command.
  E: install xxx
     add -g xxx
  

• Example Analysis:

  1. Usage: Begin with U:
     • command name: install
     • command alias: add
     • required parameters: <app>
       • app is a simple summary of the parameters.
     • optional parameters: -g -u
       • [options]: Some options.
  2. Description: The description of the command.
  3. Example: Begin with E:

About language

• Global language: Default to the language of current system.
  • You can show it by running psc config language.
  • You can change it by running psc config language zh-CN.
• Completion language: The language set for the specified completion.
  • e.g. psc completion git language en-US.
• Available language: In the completion config.json file, there is a language attribute whose value is a list of available languages.

Determine language

1. Get the specified language:
   • If there is Completion language,use it.
   • If not, use Global language.
2. Determine the final language:
   • Determine whether the value of the first step exists in Available language.
   • If it exists, use it.
   • If not, use the first of the Available language. (It’s usually en-US)

About path completion

• Take git for example, when entering git add, pressing the Space and Tab keys, path completion will not be triggered, only completion provided by the module will be triggered.
• If you want to trigger path completion, you need to enter a content which matches ^(?:\.\.?|~)?(?:[/\\]).*.
• e.g.
  • Please enter ./ or .\ and press Tab key to get path completion for the subdirectory or file.
  • Please enter ../ or ..\ and press Tab key to get path completion for the parent directory or file.
  • Please enter / or \ and press Tab key to get path completion for the sibling directory.
  • More examples: ~/ / ../../ …
• So you can enter git add ./ and then press Tab key to get the path completion.

Acknowledgements

• PS-GuiCompletion: The completion menu provided by the module is inspired by it.

Available Completions

• English
• 简体中文

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