Mac OS X Hacks

More Terminal Tricks and Tips

So many commands, so little time to learn them all. Here are a few more command-line tips and tricks that you are sure to find useful.

With a plethora of commands and various ways in which to combine them and string them together, you can do virtually unlimited things on the command line. Here are a few more tips and tricks you’ll find useful while working your way through some of the hacks in this book.

Tip

Of course, this crash course combined with [Hack #48] barely scratches the surface of the powerful Unix operating system. For a more in-depth treatment, we highly recommend Unix Power Tools (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/upt3/).

Customizing Your Terminal

Over time, you will no doubt be bored with Terminal’s plain black-on-white settings. Here are some tips for adding some spice to your Terminal windows.

Longtime Unix users would be familiar with the green-on-black settings. Those were the days when dumb terminals ruled and a color monitor was more a luxury than a necessity. In Mac OS X, you can change the color of your Terminal window to mimic the good old days.

To change the color of your Terminal window, click on Terminal → Window Settings..., as shown in Figure 5-6.

Figure 5-6. Changing the appearance of your Terminal window

The Terminal Inspector window will appear (see Figure 5-7); it’s from here that you may make various changes to your Terminal ...