ConEmu

I use ConEmu as my terminal emulator. ConEmu provides tabbed sessions, changing color schemes on-the-fly, and many customization options.

posh-git and prompt customization

To get git-related information on your prompt, you should get posh-git. Then, you can show the git-related information along with other useful information by modifying prompt() function. I have two separate example customization code snippets for posh-git v1.x (currently in beta) and v0.x, the two versions that are available as of March 2020. Both should produce the same prompt.

# http://serverfault.com/questions/95431
function Test-Administrator {
    $user = [Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent();
    (New-Object Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal $user).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltinRole]::Administrator)
}

Import-Module -Name posh-git

$GitPromptSettings.PathStatusSeparator = ''
$GitPromptSettings.AfterStatus.Text += " "

function prompt {
    $origLastExitCode = $LastExitCode

    $prompt = ""

    $prompt += Write-VcsStatus

    if (Test-Administrator) {  # if elevated
        $prompt += Write-Prompt "(Elevated) " -ForegroundColor White
    }

    $prompt += Write-Prompt "$env:USERNAME@" -ForegroundColor Red
    $prompt += Write-Prompt "$env:COMPUTERNAME" -ForegroundColor Yello
    $prompt += Write-Prompt " : " -ForegroundColor DarkGray

    $prompt += Write-Prompt "$($GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPath.Expand().Text)" -ForegroundColor Green
    $prompt += Write-Prompt " : " -ForegroundColor DarkGray
    $prompt += Write-Prompt (Get-Date -Format G) -ForegroundColor Blue
    $prompt += Write-Prompt " : " -ForegroundColor DarkGray

    $prompt += Write-Prompt "`n$(if ($PsDebugContext) {' [DBG]: '} else {''})" -ForegroundColor Magenta
    $prompt += "$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) "

    $LastExitCode = $origLastExitCode
    $prompt
}

# http://serverfault.com/questions/95431
function Test-Administrator {
    $user = [Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent();
    (New-Object Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal $user).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltinRole]::Administrator)
}

function prompt {
    # https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git/wiki/Customizing-Your-PowerShell-Prompt
    $origLastExitCode = $LastExitCode
    Write-VcsStatus

    if (Test-Administrator) {  # if elevated
        Write-Host "(Elevated) " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor White
    }

    Write-Host "$env:USERNAME@" -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Red
    Write-Host "$env:COMPUTERNAME" -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Write-Host " : " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor DarkGray

    $curPath = $ExecutionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation.Path
    if ($curPath.ToLower().StartsWith($Home.ToLower()))
    {
        $curPath = "~" + $curPath.SubString($Home.Length)
    }

    Write-Host $curPath -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Green
    Write-Host " : " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor DarkGray
    Write-Host (Get-Date -Format G) -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Blue
    Write-Host " : " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor DarkGray
    $LastExitCode = $origLastExitCode
    "`n$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) "
}

Import-Module -Name posh-git -RequiredVersion 0.7.3

$global:GitPromptSettings.BeforeText = '['
$global:GitPromptSettings.AfterText  = '] '

Color coding Get-ChildItem

To color-code the results of Get-ChildItem, I use my own Get-ChildItemColor. Once you install it, you can set aliases to the exposed functions:

If (-Not (Test-Path Variable:PSise)) {  # Only run this in the console and not in the ISE
    Import-Module Get-ChildItemColor

    Set-Alias l Get-ChildItemColor -option AllScope
    Set-Alias ls Get-ChildItemColorFormatWide -option AllScope
}

so you have colored versions of l and ls equivalents.

PSReadLine

PSReadLine makes PowerShell to behave like zsh, which is my favorite shell in GNU/Linux. It gives you substring history search, incremental history search, and awesome tab-completion. The following is my current setup:

Import-Module PSReadLine

Set-PSReadLineOption -HistoryNoDuplicates
Set-PSReadLineOption -HistorySearchCursorMovesToEnd
Set-PSReadLineOption -HistorySaveStyle SaveIncrementally
Set-PSReadLineOption -MaximumHistoryCount 4000
# history substring search
Set-PSReadlineKeyHandler -Key UpArrow -Function HistorySearchBackward
Set-PSReadlineKeyHandler -Key DownArrow -Function HistorySearchForward

# Tab completion
Set-PSReadlineKeyHandler -Chord 'Shift+Tab' -Function Complete
Set-PSReadlineKeyHandler -Key Tab -Function MenuComplete

With these settings, I can press up and down arrows for history substring search, and the tab completion shows me available candidates. For example:

You can also use CTRL + r for incremental history search.

Others

function cddash {
    if ($args[0] -eq '-') {
        $pwd = $OLDPWD;
    } else {
        $pwd = $args[0];
    }
    $tmp = pwd;

    if ($pwd) {
        Set-Location $pwd;
    }
    Set-Variable -Name OLDPWD -Value $tmp -Scope global;
}

Set-Alias -Name cd -value cddash -Option AllScope

$env:path = [Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeEnvironment]::GetRuntimeDirectory()
[AppDomain]::CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies() | % {
  if (! $_.location) {continue}
  $Name = Split-Path $_.location -leaf
  Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "NGENing : $Name"
  ngen install $_.location | % {"`t$_"}
}

Changelog

[2020-03-01 Sun]

• Add prompt customization for both posh-git versions v1.x and v0.x.

[2017-04-22 Sat]

• Update prompt customization script for the latest version of posh-git (0.7.2)

• Update Git-ChildItemColor related information

[2017-01-03 Tue]

• Update prompt customization script for the latest version of posh-git

SSD Lock-up

The system becomes not responsive for 30~ seconds, Task Manager shows 100% disk usage, while no process is using the disk.

The solution is using Standard SATA AHCI Controller instead of intel's for IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers in Device Manager.

1. Right click on the Intel(R) 8 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller and click on Update Driver Software ..

2. Select Browse my computer for driver software

3. Select Let me pick from a list of ...

4. Choose and install Standard SATA AHCI Controller

5. Reboot

A major Windows 10 update will revert the driver back to the Intel's, so you have to manually do this again if it happens.

Nvidia Driver for GTX 860M

It seems GTX 860M suffers from driver issues more than other desktop GPU's. If you install a wrong version of the driver, you will suffer from performance issues, crashes, and even BOSDs. Please do not update Nvidia driver without checking the web and make sure it does not have any problems.

• Current (2015/12/27) recommended driver version is GeForce Hot Fix driver 359.12. It is for GTX 860M, but it seems it fixes problems for 960M as well. You can read about it at the following Nvidia forum thread: GeForce Hotfix driver 359.12 for GeForce 860M notebook GPUs (Released 12/2/15).

• The current version 361.43 seems to have less number of problems, but people seem to have BOSDs with Kernal_Security_Check_Failure error.

• The previously working version was 355.98. All drivers in between (358.50, 358.87, 358.91) will cause problems.

Touchpad loses gestures after waking up

Sometimes after waking up, the Synaptics touchpad will lose gestures such as three-finger swipe. Albeit not a permanent fix, running the following batch file will reset the touchpad and bring back gestures. (I saved it as synaptics_touchpad_reset.bat) and run it whenever it doesn't work.

taskkill -f -im syntpenh.exe
cd C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP
start "" "syntpenh.exe"
exit

Enabling Touchpad 2- and 3-finger tap

If you want to enable touchpad 2- and 3-finger tap - for example, 2-finger tap for the right-click and 3-finger tap for the middle-click, you can follow the instructions at this thread.

In sum, what you need to do is, hit windows key + x, select run, enter regedit then hit enter, and on the left pane browse to the following location:

HKEY_USERS\<SID name for your current user>\Software\Synaptics\SynTP\TouchPadPS2

Only issue for me was that I had two entries, TouchPadSMB2cTM2334 and TouchPadPS2TM2334, and TouchPadSMB2cTM2334 was the one that worked.

Then, in the right pane, change values of according to the following:

2FingerTapAction

2 for right click, 4 for middle click.

2FingerTapPluginID

clear any value it may have

3FingerTapAction

2 for right click, 4 for middle click.

3FingerTapPluginID

clear any value it may have

3FingerTapPluginActionID

0

Reboot and the 2- and 3-finger taps will work.

Install toast

I use toast.exe from toaster project: https://github.com/nels-o/toaster. You can git clone the whole repo which includes the executable:

> git clone https://github.com/nels-o/toaster.git

Emacs Settings

The following is pretty much the same to https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2013-02/msg00644.html. You can modify appt-message-warning-time and appt-display-interval to your need:

(require 'appt)
(setq appt-time-msg-list nil)    ;; clear existing appt list
(setq appt-display-interval '5)  ;; warn every 5 minutes from t - appt-message-warning-time
(setq
  appt-message-warning-time '15  ;; send first warning 15 minutes before appointment
  appt-display-mode-line nil     ;; don't show in the modeline
  appt-display-format 'window)   ;; pass warnings to the designated window function
(appt-activate 1)                ;; activate appointment notification
(display-time)                   ;; activate time display

(org-agenda-to-appt)             ;; generate the appt list from org agenda files on emacs launch
(run-at-time "24:01" 3600 'org-agenda-to-appt)           ;; update appt list hourly
(add-hook 'org-finalize-agenda-hook 'org-agenda-to-appt) ;; update appt list on agenda view

Next, specify the path to your toast executable (note that I'm using UNIX-style path here, seems to be working well):

(defvar toast-notifier-path
  "/home/joon/Programs/toast/bin/Release/toast"
  )

Set up the call to toast:

;; set up the call to the notifier
(defun toast-appt-send-notification (title msg)
  (shell-command (concat toast-notifier-path
                         " -t \"" title "\""
                         " -m \"" msg "\"")))

;; designate the window function for my-appt-send-notification
(defun toast-appt-display (min-to-app new-time msg)
  (toast-appt-send-notification
    (format "Appointment in %s minutes" min-to-app)    ;; passed to -t in toast call
    (format "%s" msg)))                                ;; passed to -m in toast call

(setq appt-disp-window-function (function toast-appt-display))

Now Emacs will use toast to notify you of upcoming appointments:

If you want to be fancier, you can show an icon in the notification as well. You can download an icon (from http://www.easyicon.net/language.en/540985-org_mode_icon.html, for example) and modify toast-appt-send-notification by adding -p argument (you have to use Windows-style path here):

;; set up the call to the notifier
(defun toast-appt-send-notification (title msg)
  (shell-command (concat toast-notifier-path
                         " -t \"" title "\""
                         " -m \"" msg "\""
                         " -p C:\\Users\\joon\\Programs\\Assets\\Icons\\org_mode_256px_540985_easyicon.net.png")))

which makes notifications look very nice:

LyX

1. Set Tools > Preferences > Paths > LyxServer pipe to \\.\pipe\lyxpipe.

2. In Document > Settings > Output, check Synchronize with output. (this is checked by default)

Scripts

Create a batch file named lyxeditor.cmd with the following contents and save it to one of the locations in your PATH Windows environmental variable so the pdf editor can call it:

@echo off
SETLOCAL enabledelayedexpansion
set file=%1
set row=%2
REM remove quotes from variables
set file=!file:"=!
set row=!row:"=!
%comspec% /q /c (@echo LYXCMD:revdvi:server-goto-file-row:%file% %row%)> \\.\pipe\lyxpipe.in&&type \\.\pipe\lyxpipe.out
endlocal

The above cmd works well, but it shows an annoying black cmd window when you invoke the script. With a simple AutoHotkey script, one can not only suppress this window but also activate the LyX window after the inverse search.

Create an AutoHotkey script named lyx-inverse-search.ahk with the following code and save it to the same location at lyxeditor.cmd and compile it with the AutoHotkey to generate lyx-inverse-search.exe:

SetTitleMatchMode, RegEx
Run, lyxeditor.cmd "%1%" "%2%",, Hide
WinActivate, ahk_exe lyx.exe,,,

If you don't have AutoHotkey installed, you can also download the pre-compiled file.

SumatraPDF

SumatraPDF is good because you can recompile your LaTeX document while the pdf is open with SumatraPDF and the viewer will automatically refresh the pdf file. Some pdf viewers will lock the pdf file and will not let you re-generate the pdf file unless you close the file first. It also supports inverse and forward search nicely.

1. Download and install Sumatra PDF.

2. In LyX, go to Tools > Preferences > Paths and append the install location of SumatraPDF to PATH prefix. For example, C:\Program Files\SumatraPDF.

SumatraPDF -inverse-search "lyx-inverse-search.exe \"%f\" \"%l\""

SumatraPDF -inverse-search "lyxeditor.cmd \"%f\" \"%l\""

SumatraPDF -reuse-instance $$o -forward-search $$t $$n

Changelog