Recently, I’ve been getting very annoyed by the length of the default PowerShell prompt. Most of my work starts in my Documents folder, so with the default prompt, I’m working with C:\Users\username\Documents. But more often, it’s closer to C:\Users\username\Documents\_Projects\Project\Section\ and with some projects, even longer. Before you know it, you’re line-wrapping for anything more than running a cmdlet with no parameters.
Sure, it’s better than C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents (props to Microsoft for cleaning that up in post-XP releases), but sometimes it’s still not enough.
So this weekend, I cooked up an alternative. It’s pretty much the same as the standard prompt, with one important difference: it dynamically shortens the displayed path based on the width of your window.
At a minimum, you’ll get the first & last components of the path, regardless of the total length of the current directory - when you’re working on a regular filesystem, that’ll be the drive letter & directory name. As space allows, it walks up the tree, adding each parent directory until it runs out of room.
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<#
.Synopsis
Dynamically shortens the prompt based upon window size
.Notes
I got really annoyed by having my PowerShell prompt extend across 2/3 of my window when in a deeply-nested directory structure. This shortens the prompt to roughly 1/3 of the window width, at a minimum showing the first and last piece of the path (usually the PSPROVIDER & the current directory) Additional detail is added, starting at the current directory's parent and working up from there. The omitted portion of the path is represented with an ellipsis (...)
#>
function prompt {
# Put the full path in the title bar for reference
$host.ui.rawui.windowtitle = $global:WindowTitlePrefix + " - " + $(get-location);
# Capture the maximum length of the prompt. If you want a longer prompt, adjust the math as necessary.
$winWidth = $host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize.Width;
$maxPromptPath = [Math]::Round($winWidth/3);
# In the PowerShell ISE (version 2.0 at least), $host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize.Width is $null.
# For now, I'm just going to leave the default prompt for this scenario, as I don't work in the ISE.
if (-not ($winWidth -eq $null)) {
$currPath = (get-location).path;
if ($currPath.length -ge $maxPromptPath){
$pathParts = $currPath.split([System.IO.Path]::DirectorySeparatorChar);
# Absolute minimum path - PSPROVIDER and the current directory
$myPrompt = $pathParts[0] + [System.IO.Path]::DirectorySeparatorChar+ "..." + [System.IO.Path]::DirectorySeparatorChar + $pathParts[$pathParts.length - 1;
$counter = $pathParts.length - 2;
# This builds up the prompt until it reaches the maximum length we set earlier.
# Start at the current directory's parent and keep going up until the whole prompt reaches the previously-determined limit.
while( ($myPrompt.replace("...","..."+[System.IO.Path]::DirectorySeparatorChar+$pathParts[$counter]).length -lt $maxPromptPath) -and ($counter -ne 0)) {
$myPrompt = $myPrompt.replace("...","..."+[System.IO.Path]::DirectorySeparatorChar+$pathParts[$counter]); $counter--;
}
$($myPrompt) + ">";
} else{
# If there's enough room for the full prompt, use the PowerShell default prompt
$(if (test-path variable:/PSDebugContext) {
'[DBG]: '
} else { '' }) + 'PS ' + $(Get-Location) + $(if ($nestedpromptlevel -ge 1) { '>>' }) + '> ' }
}
}
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