How can I change Shell Prompt

[kevinah95]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. I want to change the shell prompt.

Describe the solution you'd like I'd like to have the chance to change the start symbol of the shell prompt, for example:

λ Commands with lambda at start
λ pwd
Σ Commands with sigma at start
Σ pwd

Describe alternatives you've considered Add a config variable like:

Set Prompt λ or Set Shell Prompt λ

Additional context Example:

[ocervell]

Any pointers here ? My bash prompt always start with bash-5.0$ and I can't change it...

Tried:

• setting Set Shell "bash --norc --noprofile" to no effect
• exporting PS1 in hide mode:

Hide
Type "export PS1='$ '" Sleep 50ms Enter
Sleep 1s
Show

but this still shows the line bash-5.0$ export PS1='$ '" on top of the gif.

[edoardottt]

+1, interested on this feature

[maaslalani]

Hey there! Thank you for the issue, I believe we should probably add some sort of setting for the PROMPT or allow setting environments (or both!):

Proposed solution:

Set Prompt "> "

Or:

Env PROMPT "> "

I'm leaning towards the Env solution as it provides other environment to be set, and it is a more flexible solution.

[ocervell]

Both sound like a good solution. Still wondering how to this day all the examples gif are starting with a blue arrow ...

[maaslalani]

Currently the prompt is hardcoded in, so it should be using that prompt: https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs/blob/ed89b8b81081828548896e30dbe3770921f5e92c/shell.go#L23

and the default shell is bash.

What version of VHS and ttyd are you using and which operating system?

[ocervell]

Weird, for me the default shell is bash-5.0$ ...

Running latest version of VHS with Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS running in a Vagrant VM:

vagrant@ubuntu2004:~/secator$ vhs -v
vhs version v0.7.1 (537d03a)

vagrant@ubuntu2004:~/secator$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal

vagrant@ubuntu2004:~/secator$ ttyd -v
ttyd version 1.7.4-68521f5

[maaslalani]

I see, @ocervell do you have anything in your ~/.login / ~/.bash_login out of curiosity?

We use a --login shell and I'm wondering if perhaps the prompt is being overridden there. If that's the conflict then we can perhaps override with VHS by setting the prompt after that.

[ocervell]

Nope, the files don't even exist on my machine.

We have this in the ~/.bashrc:

if [ "$ASCIINEMA_REC" == "1" ]; then
    PS1='\$ '
elif [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
fi
unset color_prompt force_color_prompt

# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

[edoardottt]

I'm facing the same issue as @ocervell.

vhs version v0.7.1

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 23.10
Release:	23.10
Codename:	mantic

ttyd version 1.7.4-68521f5

[ocervell]

I saw the bash-5.2$ prompt on https://github.com/edoardottt/images/blob/main/pphack/pphack.gif ... @maaslalani any other ideas to help working it out ?

[ocervell]

Any update ? I've switched to asciinema at the moment just because of this issue but I really like vhs otherwise ...

[maaslalani]

Hey @ocervell, no update so far, I haven't looked into this issue yet. This is definitely something we'll have to solve though as changing the prompt is quite important!

[kovmir]

Set Shell to fish, it somehow magically works. The prompt looks like the one in README.md of this repository.

[edoardottt]

thanks for the suggestion @kovmir , however it doesn't solve the problem for me

[kovmir]

thanks for the suggestion @kovmir , however it doesn't solve the problem for me

Would this help you?

[ocervell]

@kovmir changing the shell to fish worked for me on my VMWare Debian VM, but not on my Vagrant Debian VM. Weird.

[Delta456]

Hi, I can work on this issue because I also need this.

[maaslalani]

Awesome @Delta456, thank you for the support. I've assigned you to the issue!