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Describe Your Terminal Usage

I'm curious how other people use the Terminal. Do you keep a few windows open constantly? Do you open it as needed? Is it light-text-on-dark-background? Translucent? What size?

I open a new Terminal window when I need it. The app's always running. My default window is black translucent (I call it "smoke") at 128 x 36 with a relatively small font (currently Anonymous Pro 11, previously ProFont X 9) in white (with some terminal colors enabled, and bold fonts allowed).

I use tcsh, with about 50 or so aliases in my .tcshrc file.

6 Responses to "Describe Your Terminal Usage"

  1. I usually have at least one window open with two tabs (80x24). One tab for IRC, the other for local use. Monoco 9, dark blue semi transparent background, 90% white text. ANSI colors allowed (customized via TerminalColours), and bold allowed as well.

    I use zsh, and my zshrc files are somewhat intense (and available at http://src.djgraphite.com/private/vinay/SystemSettings/home/.zshrc and http://src.djgraphite.com/private/vinay/SystemSettings/home/.zsh)

  2. Not all that different. Fewer aliases, slightly smaller screen. And I sometimes close Terminal, though not (usually) on purpose.

    Now that you brought this up, though, what I'd really like to know is who has ever used Grass, Novel, Ocean or Red Sands intentionally. (I'll give Homebrew a pass for the nostalgia value.)

  3. a couple of 80x24 terminals, unless I'm doing serious development work (in which case it's more like 6-8). 14pt white-on-black Monaco.. Yes, I'm blind.

  4. I open one (with a open terminal here script from the Finder) when ever I need one, which is usually about every couple weeks or so. Last thing I did was use it to test an AppleScript for using curl to add a torrent file to my ReadyNAS. I hadn't used it much before that since I got the python script runner to work from the Finder.

  5. I'm a server admin and, even though the servers are Xserves running Mac OS X Server, I still use the shell for a lot of admin functions. I started using iTerm instead of Terminal a few years ago, since Terminal didn't do tabs at that time. I may try to switch back to Terminal at some point, but it's just different enough to be a little annoying to do so.

    I use Spaces, so I have a dedicated space for iTerm windows. In that space, I have 12 iTerm windows open all the time, each dedicated to a different server, and each with 3-4 tabs open to that server. They're all 80x24, with black Monaco 10 text on a light yellow background.

    I use bash, with only a few aliases defined.

  6. Two 80x50 windows with each two tabs, running all the time, 12pt Monaco white-on-black.

    I used to use the tcsh but moved to the zsh 12 years ago or something.