Terminal Tips: Customize the look of your Terminal
If you’re a GUI kind of OS X user, who is just tinkering with the Terminal to see what it is all about, you’ll be glad
to know that the look of the Terminal can be customized beyond the black text on white background or white text on
black background that you normally see. Simply launch the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/), and select
Terminal—>Window Settings… from the menu. A window will open. Click on the drop-down menu that says
Shell. First, select Display. Here, you can tweak basic settings like the appearance of the
cursor and what default text you would like to use. Now, grab that drop-down menu again and click on
Color. Here, you can customize what colors you would like the background, normal text, bold text,
selections, and the cursor to be. For even more fun, click Use an image for the background to browse a
particular image you’d like for your Terminal sessions. Even easier: simply drag a pic into the Terminal while
holding down the Option key to set it as the background. Now simply click the “Use Settings as Defaults”
button at the bottom of the window to save these settings.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mills00013 said 3:48PM on 7-25-2005
this is great. i knew you could change the colors of text and the bacground but not add a pic. thats really really cool. thanks
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janeiro said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
changing your prompt is also something that can be fun and useful. if you're using bash (Panther's default), you do this by setting the PS1 environment variable. i put this in .bashrc to set mine every time i log in:
export PS1="[ 33[01;34m]u@h 33[00m]] 33[01;32m]w 33[00m]n> "
that can also be run by itself to change your prompt (it should all be on one line).
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ASZero said 12:29PM on 10-18-2005
That's a swell trick, I've got mine set to a 50% transparency so my desktop pic peeks through. A nice blend between the two creates a clean look.
But I have to say, I'm a very GUI-centric Mac user, and have tried numerous times to come up with an excuse to use the Terminal, simply because I dig the aesthetic of the thing. And I love applying keyboard technique to speed up data access and repetitive functions (big Quicksilver fan). But having made several attempts to learn some basic Terminal-fu, reading beginning turorials and the like, I have yet to come up with any functions that I couldn't otherwise achieve through more elegant solution within the GUI. All I ask is for one really good thing I can do with the Terminal that can't be acheived way faster via GUI + Quicksilver. Any takers?
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Scott McNulty said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
ASZero, the real power of the Terminal is exposed with a concept called 'piping.' Most commands in the terminal create and output (in this case the 'top' command outputs a list of the currently running processes). Now, executing single commands is probably easier to do using the GUI, however lets say you want a text fill of what processes are running and you want to upload it to a webserver for some reason.
In the GUI that would be a pain (though you could use Applescript), but in the terminal you can just pipe the output of top to a text file and then send that text file to a server with FTP.
I am sure there are lots of other examples that show the power of the Terminal, that is the one that just popped into my mind.
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Thomas said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Hey CK -
That's a nifty picture. Mind me asking if you took it or where you found it? I like cityscapes -- is it part of NYC's?
Thanks.
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ASZero said 12:29PM on 10-18-2005
Thanks Scott--Right now I've got GeekTool running Top for me and integrating it as part of my desktop. I don't work in tech, so I doubt I'll have any need for exporting a processes text fill and uploading to servers, but now that I'm hip to 'piping' I'll try to come up with some other workflow application. I shall not rest until I come up with an excuse for typing into a prompt.
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C.K. Sample, III said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Hey Thomas,
I took it with my Canon Powershot G1 on low-light settings several years ago. It's a pic from my old apartment in the Bronx, near Arthur Avenue in Belmont. Works really well as a Terminal backdrop.
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ASZero said 12:29PM on 10-18-2005
Ha--thought that looked like the Bronx. Nice to see another uptown alumnist here in the land of Apple esoterica.
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