Sysz – An fzf terminal UI for systemctl (github.com)

Looks like a useful tool, thanks for sharing!

I'm continually impressed at how many uses fzf has. Yet I still feel like we're only scratching the surface of its utility.

Does anyone know of a way or how to go about making a way to get <tab> and <tab><tab> to bash autocomplete "systemctl status " with service names? It seems like remembering where the service name has dashes, matches the package name, has a "d" at the end, and so on is half the battle for me when working with systemctl.

This achieves something similar but it also does a whole lot more than just help complete the name.

Edit: Helps to have bash-completion working properly for the user :).

  systemd: /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/systemctl

The crazy thing about this is how simple the code is.

    _sysz_list_units |
      fzf \
        --exact \
        --multi \
        --ansi \
        --reverse \
        --no-sort \
        --history="$SYSZ_HISTORY" \
        --prompt="Units: " \
        --bind "ctrl-v:preview('${BASH_SOURCE[0]}' _fzf_cat {})" \
        --preview="'${BASH_SOURCE[0]}' _fzf_preview {}" \
        --preview-window=70% |
  readarray -t PICKS

This is the whole UI. Just give it a list of things to search through, a prompt, and a command for previewing the thing and fzf handles literally all the rest of the UI for you.

I have not heard of fzf - but anything that makes cli interactions with systemd is welcome by me. I love it as a tool - but it is kinda verbose with cli args.

If you have trouble running this, try updating fzf. TIL that my package manager's version of fzf is 4 years old, and that did not play nicely with some of the features used by Sysz.

With fzf-tab [1], you can use fzf wherever your zsh completion is. Here is a screencast showing it[2].

[1] https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab

[2] https://asciinema.org/a/KhDMhtZ3J8ppO7B8L6jFSE1co

Off-topic, but TIL about Unlicense License from this project’s license. Was wondering how it differed from MIT and found this interesting thread: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1471...

Off-topic: how do you call a prompt that looks like the one in the video? I'd like to have one in my fish terminal.

(I tried installing an oh-my-fish theme with such a prompt, but it required Powerline fonts, which I can't get to work.)

Can anyone compare/contrast fzf and pick[1]? I use pick for all sorts of things, but especially as a replacement in vim for CtrlP. Wondering if I'm missing out on something :-)

[1] https://github.com/mptre/pick

I love fzf but somehow I can never find a way to naturally make it a part of my workflow.

   $ be rspec spec/**{tab}

    $ shopt -s globstar

    $ shopt -u globstar

Why does it use "sudo" in the first place when systemd uses PolicyKit for proper fine-grained/action-specific privilege acquisition out-of-the-box?

This is a really interesting example of the virtue of small general tools that can be combined in useful ways. Kudos.

> Runs sudo automatically and only if necessary

So never? Because systemctl by default triggers a PolicyKit prompt when run without sufficient privileges. sudo is entirely unnecessary.