Note
Until mercurial and bazaar support Python-3 or PyPy powerline will not support repository information when running in these interpreters.
Note
When using pip {repository_root} directory referenced in documentation may be found using pip show powerline-status. In the output of pip show there is a line like Location: {path}, that {path} is {repository_root}. Unless it is --editable installation this is only applicable for {repository_root}/powerline/… paths: something like {repository_root}/scripts/powerline-render is not present.
When using other packages referenced paths may not exist, in this case refer to package documentation.
Due to a naming conflict with an unrelated project powerline is available on PyPI under the powerline-status name:
pip install powerline-status
is the preferred method because this will get the latest release. To get current development version
pip install --user git+git://github.com/powerline/powerline
may be used. If powerline was already checked out into some directory
pip install --user --editable={path_to_powerline}
is useful, but note that in this case pip will not install powerline executable and something like
ln -s {path_to_powerline}/scripts/powerline ~/.local/bin
will have to be done (~/.local/bin should be replaced with some path present in $PATH).
Note
If ISP blocks git protocol for some reason github also provides ssh (git+ssh://git@github.com/powerline/powerline) and https (git+https://github.com/powerline/powerline) protocols. git protocol should be the fastest, but least secure one though.
Powerline uses several special glyphs to get the arrow effect and some custom symbols for developers. This requires having either a symbol font or a patched font installed in the system. Used application (e.g. terminal emulator) must also either be configured to use patched fonts (in some cases even support it because custom glyphs live in private use area which some applications reserve for themselves) or support fontconfig for powerline to work properly with powerline-specific glyphs.
24-bit color support may be enabled if used terminal emulator supports it (see the terminal emulator support matrix).
There are basically two ways to get powerline glyphs displayed: use PowerlineSymbols.otf font as a fallback for one of the existing fonts or install a patched font.
This method is the fallback method and works for every terminal.
Download the font from powerline-fonts. If preferred font can’t be found in the powerline-fonts repo, then patching the preferred font is needed instead.
After downloading this font refer to platform-specific instructions.