Reminders

Basics

Think you're forgetting to take advantage of the abbreviations you've added? Want to be reminded? Enable the reminders system and the reminders notifier:

# .zshrc

ABBR_GET_AVAILABLE_ABBREVIATION=1
ABBR_LOG_AVAILABLE_ABBREVIATION=1

Now if you miss using one of your abbreviations, a reminder message will be logged in the terminal.

% abbr a=b
% b[Enter]
abbr: `a` is your regular user abbreviation for `b`

By default, the message prints before command output, if any.

% abbr hw="echo hello world"
% echo hello world
abbr: `a` is your regular user abbreviation for `b`
hello world

If you prefer to have it print after the command output, toggle on ABBR_LOG_AVAILABLE_ABBREVIATION_AFTER:

# .zshrc

# …
ABBR_LOG_AVAILABLE_ABBREVIATION_AFTER=1

% abbr hw="echo hello world"
% echo hello world
hello world
abbr: `a` is your regular user abbreviation for `b`

INFO

The reminders system cannot distinguish between a command you typed and a command you pulled up from history. For example, with the reminders system on and reminder logging on:

% abbr a=b

% b[Enter]
abbr: `a` is your global user abbreviation for `b`
# ^ that's good

# now 
% [pull up the previous from history][Enter]
abbr: `a` is your global user abbreviation for `b`
# ^ might feel like a false positive

But you know you didn't miss using the abbreviation!

Advanced

The reminders system sets several variables:

• ABBR_UNUSED_ABBREVIATION is the abbreviation you could have used
• ABBR_UNUSED_ABBREVIATION_EXPANSION is what you typed instead
• ABBR_UNUSED_ABBREVIATION_PREFIX is the prefix you would have to use along with the abbreviation, if any (learn more at Prefixes)
• ABBR_UNUSED_ABBREVIATION_SCOPE is the scope of the abbreviation you could have used (learn more at Scopes)
• ABBR_UNUSED_ABBREVIATION_TYPE is the type of the abbreviation you could have used (learn more at Types)

Advanced users might choose to do something with these values. For example, you could not enable the reminders notifier and instead use a precmd hook to customize your prompt:

# .zshrc

ABBR_GET_AVAILABLE_ABBREVIATION=1

# leave ABBR_LOG_AVAILABLE_ABBREVIATION unset,
# or do `ABBR_LOG_AVAILABLE_ABBREVIATION=0`

my_abbreviation_reminder() {
  # …
}

autoload -U add-zsh-hook

add-zsh-hook precmd my_abbreviation_reminder