Start as zsh -f to disable your config.

If it works, read and fix your config.

zsh -r

Prevents cd and others.

man zshzle

-e to use emacs keys

Extensible

man zshcompsys. Make sure to use the newer system.

You can extend zsh by writing functions.

They look a bit like C functions, but the signature is always empty (no named parameters).

There is an autoload command. Use this to tell zsh what file a named function lives in. It will be loaded when used.

Aliases are defined using: alias this="that"

They can't have arguments/parameters.

Here is a cursor keys pattern, found with cat -v:

# Ctrl keys move the cursor forward and backward one word
bindkey '^[[1;5C' forward-word
bindkey '^[[1;5D' backward-word

# Alt keys do the same, because that's the behaviour in Emacs
bindkey '^[[1;3C' forward-word
bindkey '^[[1;3D' backward-word

Set $PS1 and $RPS1 to set the left and right-hand sides of the prompt respectively.

zsh includes vcs_info to give you information about version control. Find out something about this using man zshcontrib. However, this manual is a bit nuts, so background reading on the web is probably required.

Define an array with thing=('first item' 'second item'), then access them with ${thing[1]}.

They are 1-indexed (unless you set the KSH_ARRAYS option).

zsh has fancy globbing.

standard multi-character wildcard

thing.*

alternatives

thing.(txt|zip|exe)

Also, in zsh when you do parameter expansion (substitution), globals won't come into effect and the parameter won't be split on whitespace.

zsh prints an error if your glob doesn't match a file, unless you set the NO_NOMATCH option.

zsh will tell you when your background jobs finish.

http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide.html