16.5. Terminal Preferences

16.5. Terminal Preferences If you spend endless hours staring at the Terminal screen, as most Unix junkies do, youll eventually be grateful for the preference settings that let you control how Terminal looks and acts. In fact, in Leopards Terminal 2.0
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16.5. Terminal Preferences16.5. Terminal PreferencesIf you spend endless hours staring at the Terminal screen, as most Unix junkies do, youlleventually be grateful for the preference settings that let you control how Terminal looksand acts. In fact, in Leopards Terminal 2.0, you can manage your preferences in a wholenew way.Instead of having a single set of options saved (as with other applications), Terminal nowmanages your options as named settings groups, allowing you to quickly apply differentsettings to different windows at any time using the Inspector window (Shell ShowInspector).You can also save the layout of entire groups of windows, each with their own settings ineffect, into a single configuration, allowing you to recreate those layouts in an instant.Configure your settings using Terminals Preferences panel (Figure 16-8), which you getto by choosing Terminal Preferences (of all places).16.5.1. StartupThe Startup tab lets you configure what Settings or Window group Terminal should useto open (in case you want something other than the default). This tab also gives youanother way to switch from bash to a different default shell. (Where it says Shells openwith, choose command (complete path) and then type /bin/bash for bash, or /bin/tcshfor tcsh. New Terminal windows will then open with that shell.)Figure 16-8. To access the Terminal Inspector, choose Terminal Show Inspector (or press -I). This window shows all of your Terminal saved settings. To apply any to an existing window, just select the window and then a setting.16.5.2. SettingsThis tab is the heart of Terminals preferences management. On the left: a list of settingscategories. On the right: the options for the currently selected category. Terminal comeswith several preconfigured settings, and you can add and remove these and your ownusing the+and-buttons below the list. (To restore all the options for the prepackagedsettings to their original state, select Restore Defaults from the menu.)To see your changes reflected instantly in a Terminal window, make sure the windowyoure watching is using the same setting that you are modifying.16.5.2.1. TextHeres where you control what the insertion point looks like, along with choices of fontsand colors.Note: No matter what font you choose, typed characters align vertically. They appearmonospaced as though theyre all Monaco or Courier.16.5.2.2. Window • Title. Turn on the elements that youd like the current Terminal window to display in the title bar. Remember, your preferences can be different for each setting group; you might therefore want the windows title bars to identify the differences. • WindowSize. The Dimensions boxes affect the width in characters (columns) and height in lines (rows) of new Terminal windows. (Of course, you can always resize an existing window by dragging its lower-right corner. As you drag, the title bar displays the windows current dimensions.) • Color. Not only can you set the background color, but you can set its opacity as well, making your Terminal windows translucent—a sure way to make novices fall to their knees in awe. Just drag the slider to the right and watch the background of the active window nearly disappear, like the Cheshire Cat, leaving only text. Tip: This effect looks especially cool if you make the Terminal window black with white or yellow writing. • Scrollback. As your command line activity fills the Terminal window with text, older lines at top disappear from view. So that you can get back to these previous lines for viewing, copying, or printing, Terminal offers a scrollback buffer, which sets aside a certain amount of memory—and adds a scroll bar—so that you can do so. The new Terminal stores the data in this buffer much more efficiently, so you should have no problem keeping this at its default unlimited setting. However, if you do get the crazy urge to display all 1.3 million lines from the manpages, you just might run out of memory if you dont set a limit.Note: And how would you do that? By running this command, of course: find/usr/share/man/man* -name *gz -exec man -P cat /{} \;16.5.2.3. Shell • Startup. Enter a command here (for example, cal -y), and each time you open a new window, youll see its output and then get a new prompt. (If you just want the output without a new prompt, check Run inside shell.) • When the shell exits. When youre finished fooling around in Terminal, you end your session either by closing the window, or more properly, by typing exit (or pressing Control-D) at the prompt. The When the Shell Exits setting determines what happens when you do that. • Prompt before closing. Shell commands can take some time to complete. In some cases, when you attempt to close a Terminal window before its work is finished, Terminal asks you if youre sure you want to cancel the process and lose your work. The options here let you configure when you want to be prompted, if ever, and even which processes you dont want Terminal to warn you about.16.5.2.4. KeyboardThese controls let you choose keyboard shortcuts that help you navigate your Terminalwindow, or that send strings of canned text to the shell. As your Unix prowess grows,these shortcuts become more useful.Tip: For some Unix geeks, the non-Unixy location of the Control key has been frustratingenough to keep them from using Macs. They use that key constantly, and would rathernot have to rewire their brains to handle the changed location.But this problem is easilyremedied. In System Preferences, in Keyboard & Mouse, the Modifier Keys button letsyou swap the Control and Caps Lock keys ...