ttab

Contents

• ttab — Introduction
• Installation
  • Via the npm registry
  • Manual installation
• Examples
• Usage
• License
  • Acknowledgements
  • npm dependencies
• Changelog

ttab — Introduction

An OS X CLI for programmatically opening a new terminal tab/window in the standard terminal application, Terminal.app, optionally with a command to execute and/or a specific title and specific display settings.

Installation

Important: Irrespective of installation method, ttab needs to be granted access for assistive devices in order to operate, which is a one-time operation that requires administrative privileges.
If you're not prompted on first run and get an error message instead, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy, tab Privacy, select Accessibility, unlock, and make sure Terminal.app is in the list on the right and has a checkmark.
For more information, see Apple's support article on the subject

Via the npm registry

With Node.js installed, install via the npm registry (you may have to prepend sudo):

npm install ttab -g

Manual installation

• Download this bash script as ttab.
• Make it executable with chmod +x ttab.
• Move it to a folder in your $PATH, such as /usr/local/bin

Examples

# Open a new tab in the current terminal window.
ttab

# Open a new tab in a new terminal window.
ttab -n 

# Open a new tab and execute the specified command.
ttab ls -l "$HOME/Library/Application Support"

# Open a new tab, switch to the specified dir., then execute the specified command.
ttab -d ~/Library/Application\ Support ls -1 

# Open a new tab with title 'How Green Was My Valley' and settings 'Grass'
ttab -t 'How Green Was My Valley' -s Grass

# Open a new tab and execute the specified script.
ttab /path/to/someScript 

# Open a new tab, execute the specified script, then close the tab on termination.
ttab exec /path/to/someScript

# Open a new tab, execute a command, wait for a keypress, then close the tab.
ttab eval "ls \$HOME/Library/Application\ Support; echo Press a key to exit.; read -s -n 1; exit"

Usage

$ ttab --help


SYNOPSIS:
    ttab [-w] [-s settings] [-t title] [-g|-G] [-d dir] [command [param1 ...]]

DESCRIPTION:
    Opens a new Terminal.app tab and optionally executes a command and assigns settings,
    among other options.

    Important: Terminal must be allowed assistive access in order for this utility
    to work, which requires one-time authorization with administrative privileges.
    If you get error messages instead of being prompted, authorize Terminal.app via
    System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility.

    The new tab will run a login shell (i.e., load the user's shell profile) and by default
    inherit the working directory from the parent shell.

    -w creates the new tab in a new window rather than in Terminal's front window.
    -s specifies the settings (profiles) to apply to the new tab, as defined in Terminal.app's
      Preferences > Profiles, such as 'Grass'; settings determine the appearance and behavior
      of the new tab; name matching is case-insensitive.
    -t specifies a custom title to assign to the new tab; otherwise, if a command is specified,
      its first token will become the new tab's title.
    -d explicitly specifies a working directory for the new tab; by default, the invoking shell's
      working directory is inherited (even if -w is also specified).
    -g (back*g*round) causes Terminal not to activate, but within Terminal, the new tab
      will become the active tab; useful in scripts that launch other applications and
      don't want Terminal to steal focus later.
    -G causes Terminal not to activate *and* the active element within Terminal not to change;
      i.e., the active window and tab stay the same. If Terminal happens to be active, the new 
      tab will effectively open in the background.

    NOTE: With -g or -G specified, for technical reasons, Terminal or the new tab will still
          activate *briefly, temporarily* in most scenarios.

    Quoted parameters are handled properly and there's no need to quote the command as a whole,
    provided it is a *single* command.

    To specify *multiple* commands, use 'eval' followed by a single, *double*-quoted string
    in which the commands are separated by ';' Do NOT use backslash-escaped double quotes inside
    this string; rather, use single-character backslash-escaping as needed.
    Use 'exit' as the last command to automatically close the tab when the command
    terminates; precede it with 'read -s -n 1' to wait for a keystroke first.

    Alternatively, pass a script name or path; prefix with 'exec' to automatically
    close the tab when the script terminates.

EXAMPLES:
    ttab -t Green -s Grass  # create new tab with title 'Green' using settings 'Grass'
    ttab ls -l "$HOME/Library/Application Support"
    ttab -d "\~/Library/Application Support" ls -1
    ttab eval "ls \$HOME/Library/Application\ Support; echo Press a key to exit.; read -s -n 1; exit"
    ttab /path/to/someScript # execute a script and keep the tab open on termination
    ttab exec /path/to/someScript # execute a script and close the tab on termination.

License

Copyright (c) 2015 Michael Klement [e-mail] (http://same2u.net), released under the MIT license.

Acknowledgements

This project gratefully depends on the following open-source components, according to the terms of their respective licenses.

npm dependencies below have optional suffixes denoting the type of dependency; the absence of a suffix denotes a required run-time dependency: (D) denotes a development-time-only dependency, (O) an optional dependency, and (P) a peer dependency.

npm dependencies

• doctoc (D)
• json (D)
• replace (D)
• semver (D)
• tap (D)
• urchin (D)

Changelog

Versioning complies with semantic versioning (semver).

• v0.1.4 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Improved CLI usage help; keywords added to package.json.
  • [dev] make browse now opens the GitHub repo in the default browser.

• v0.1.3 (2015-06-01):

  • [fix] The -g and -G options again correctly do not activate Terminal.app when creating the desired tab.
  • [enhancement] Option parsing now accepts option-arguments directly attached to the option.
  • [dev] Tests added.

• v0.1.2 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Manual-installation link and instructions fixed; examples fixed.

• v0.1.1 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] README.md improved with respect to manual installation instructions.

• v0.1.0 (2015-06-01):

  • Initial release.