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Nickname a plugin or snippet#

Introduction#

Zinit supports loading a plugin or snippet with a nickname. Set the nickname through the id-as ice-mod. For example, one could try to load docker/compose from GitHub binary releases:

zinit ice as"program" from"gh-r" mv"docker-c* -> docker-compose"
zinit light "docker/compose"

This registers plugin under the ID docker/compose. Now suppose the user would want to also load a completion from the project's GitHub repository (not the binary release catalog) which is also available under the GitHub url-path …/docker/compose. The two IDs, both being "docker/compose", will collide.

The solution to this problem – the id-as (to be read as: identify-as) ice to which this document is devoted: by using the id-as ice the user can resolve the conflict by loading the completion under a kind of a nickname, for example under "dc-complete", by issuing the following commands:

zinit ice as"completion" id-as"dc-complete"
zinit load docker/compose

The plugin (of the type completion) is now seen under ID dc-complete:

~ zinit list | grep -i dc-complete
dc-complete

Issuing zinit report dc-complete also works, so as other Zinit commands:

~ zinit report dc-complete
Plugin report for dc-complete
-------------------------------

Completions:
_docker-compose [enabled]

This can be also used to nickname snippets. For example, you can use this to create handy IDs in place of long urls:

zinit ice as"program" id-as"git-unique"
zinit snippet https://github.com/Osse/git-scripts/blob/master/git-unique

The commands zinit update git-unique, zinit delete git-unique and other will work normally and e.g. zinit times will show the nickname-ID git-unique instead of the long URL.

id-as'auto'#

There's a special value to the id-as'' ice – auto. It causes the nickname to be automatically set to the last component of the plugin name or snippet URL. For example:

zinit ice as"program" id-as"auto"
zinit snippet https://github.com/Osse/git-scripts/blob/master/git-unique

will work the same as before, i.e.: like if the ice used was id-as'git-unique'. Example with a plugin:

# Will work as if id-as'zsh-autopair' was passed
zinit ice wait lucid id-as"auto"
zinit load hlissner/zsh-autopair

Empty id-as''#

An empty id-as'' will work the same as id-as'auto', i.e.:

# Will work as if id-as'zsh-autopair' was passed
zinit ice wait lucid id-as
zinit load hlissner/zsh-autopair