command-selector-menu (CSM)

Do you use the command-line regularly, are there commands that you need to run with some frequency but with not enough frequency to actually remember the command of the top of your head? Deleting/pruning old git branches, assigning a directory to a drive letter to normalize paths during development, runing that command that needs an unnecessarily specific set of flags to run properly, do all of this without having to find that one specific stack overflow page that contains the command you're trying to run. Simply add the command you're interested in to the .json configuration file and never worry about it again!

The command-selector-menu is a Node based command-line management tool that aids in the use of more obsure commands. It is meant to serve as a bridge betwee the commands you use often enough to justify giving them an alias, and the command that you would only ever need to run once.

Installation

This command-line program doesn't include any installer, instead the binary should be added to the system path.

Configuration

By default the csm command uses the csm.json located next to the location of the csm binary (./csm.json). For more information on the format of the JSON file that is used, go to this page.

Building The Binary

The on requirement for building the binary for this application would be to have node installed. With node installed the commands to build the binary once the repository has been pulled are as follows:

npm install
npm run distribute

With those commands having been run the binary can then be found at ./build/csm.exe.

Integrating the csm Command into Windows Powershell

While adding the csm executable to the path would be enough to get it working, assuming that the corresonding csm.json file already exists, the default powershell coloring scheme doesn't play well with the default csm output color scheme. In order to get around this, you must create an alias for the csm command in the powershell profile in order to easily enable the more legible output color by default.

You'll first need to be acquainted with the powershell profile, basically the powershell equivalent to .bashrc. Once you're familiar with the powershell profile you can add the following lines to your profile to simplify starting the program with the argument's you're interested in using.

NOTE: Doing this causes some "weirdness" in the arguments that are passed through to the function that is defined. For example, something I've run into is that calling csm -i 2,2 doesn't work but csm -i "2,2" does. Not entirely what is causing powershell functions to treat arguments differently from regular command line arguments, but that is what we have to work with.

Function <YourFuncName> {csm.exe --color 2 @Args}
Set-Alias -Name csm -Value <YourFuncName>