I installed zsh 5.3 and am using it. Now in .zshrc I have done the following -autoload -Uz compinit promptinitcompinitpromptinit# End of lines added by compinstallNow I cycled through some of the prompts and liked one big_fade The big_fade looks like this -shirish@think-debian Mon Dec 26 02:24:01am/usr/share/zsh/functions/Prompts>The builtin code of the prompt is at /usr/share/zsh/functions/Prompts/prompt_bigfade_setup/usr/share/zsh/functions/Prompts> cat prompt_bigfade_setup# Generic large colour fade-bar prompt theme from bashprompt# Created by James Manning <jmm@raleigh.ibm.com># Changed by Spidey 08/06# Converted to zsh prompt theme by <adam@spiers.net>prompt_bigfade_help () {  cat <<EOHThis prompt is color-scheme-able.  You can invoke it thus:  prompt bigfade [<fade-bar> [<userhost> [<date> [<cwd>]]]]where the parameters are the colors for the fade-bar, user@host text,date text, and current working directory respectively.  The defaultcolors are blue, white, white, and yellow.  This theme works best witha dark background.Recommended fonts for this theme: either UTF-8, or nexus or vga or similar.If you don't have any of these, the 8-bit characters will probably lookstupid.EOH}prompt_bigfade_setup () {  local fadebar=${1:-'blue'}  local userhost=${2:-'white'}  local date=${3:-'white'}  local cwd=${4:-'yellow'}  local -A schars  autoload -Uz prompt_special_chars  prompt_special_chars  PS1=%B%F{$fadebar}$schars[333]$schars[262]$schars[261]$schars[260]%B%F{$userhost}%K{$fadebar}%n@%m%b%k%f%F{$fadebar}%K{black}$schars[260]$schars[261]$schars[262]$schars[333]%b%f%k%F{$fadebar}%K{black}$schars[333]$schars[262]$schars[261]$schars[260]%B%F{$date}%K{black} %D{%a %b %d} %D{%I:%M:%S%P}$prompt_newline%B%F{$cwd}%K{black}%d>%b%f%k   PS2=%B%F{$fadebar}$schars[333]$schars[262]$schars[261]$schars[260]%b%F{$fadebar}%K{black}$schars[260]$schars[261]$schars[262]$schars[333]%F{$fadebar}%K{black}$schars[333]$schars[262]$schars[261]$schars[260]%B%F{$fadebar}>%b%f%k   prompt_opts=(cr subst percent)}prompt_bigfade_preview () {  if (( ! $#* )); then    prompt_preview_theme bigfade    print    prompt_preview_theme bigfade red white grey white  else    prompt_preview_theme bigfade $@  fi}prompt_bigfade_setup $@Now while all this is good, I want to do some changes to the prompt. For instance I don't want the special symbols '' .Also, at the very end the prompt ends with > . I want to end it as $ (similar to bash) . Can somebody help?
removing strange characters from a zsh prompt
debian;zsh;prompt;theme
@jdeBP - thank you, you provided the first clues. This is the output I was getting -Then I looked up if the font was not there -> aptitude search xfonts-nexusi   xfonts-nexus                                                       - Nexus font for X I realized that the font is there, then the only possibility left is the console i.e. .zsh has not been told it needs to use utf-8 and this was confirmed with -> localeLANG=en_INLANGUAGE=en_IN:enLC_CTYPE=en_INLC_NUMERIC=en_INLC_TIME=en_INLC_COLLATE=en_INLC_MONETARY=en_INLC_MESSAGES=en_INLC_PAPER=en_INLC_NAME=en_INLC_ADDRESS=en_INLC_TELEPHONE=en_INLC_MEASUREMENT=en_INLC_IDENTIFICATION=en_INLC_ALL=After realizing it, I knew what I needed to do, from How can I enable UTF-8 support in the Linux console? @GAD3R's answer. I just added those bits -/home/shirish> cat ~/.zsh/.zshrc | grep UTF-8 export LC_ALL=en_IN.UTF-8export LANG=en_IN.UTF-8export LANGUAGE=en_IN.UTF-8sourced those bits for the prompt -/home/shirish> source ~/.zsh/.zshrcand got the correct prompt -saw that locale is also nice,correct now. /home/shirish> localeLANG=en_IN.UTF-8LANGUAGE=en_IN.UTF-8LC_CTYPE=en_IN.UTF-8LC_NUMERIC=en_IN.UTF-8LC_TIME=en_IN.UTF-8LC_COLLATE=en_IN.UTF-8LC_MONETARY=en_IN.UTF-8LC_MESSAGES=en_IN.UTF-8LC_PAPER=en_IN.UTF-8LC_NAME=en_IN.UTF-8LC_ADDRESS=en_IN.UTF-8LC_TELEPHONE=en_IN.UTF-8LC_MEASUREMENT=en_IN.UTF-8LC_IDENTIFICATION=en_IN.UTF-8LC_ALL=en_IN.UTF-8(rant)-Thanks to you came to know about the proposal to do away with terminal emulators in Debian which don't support utf-8 . I'll be reading the whole thread but would actually say, it's not just the terminal, every app. should be utf-8 and moreover, the default font for Debian should be utf-8. Although the last part cannot happen unless other things are in place first. I shouldn't have had to put in UTF-8 credentials in my .zshrc, they should be part of the default experience. (/rant)