ttab

Contents

• ttab — open a new Terminal.app / iTerm.app tab or window
• Installation
  • Installation from the npm registry
  • Manual installation
• Examples
• Usage
• License
  • Acknowledgements
  • npm dependencies
• Changelog

ttab — open a new Terminal.app / iTerm.app tab or window

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

Note: iTerm.app support is experimental in that it is currently not covered by the automated tests run before every release.

Installation

Important: Irrespective of installation method, Terminal.app / iTerm.app needs to be granted access for assistive devices in order for ttab to function properly, 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 / iTerm.app is in the list on the right and has a checkmark.
For more information, see Apple's support article on the subject

Installation from the npm registry

With Node.js or io.js installed, install from the npm registry:

[sudo] npm install ttab -g

Note:

• Whether you need sudo depends on how you installed Node.js / io.js and whether you've changed permissions later; if you get an EACCES error, try again with sudo.
• The -g ensures global installation and is needed to put ttab in your system's $PATH.

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 -w 

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

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

# Open a new tab with title 'How Green Was My Valley' (-t not supported in iTerm) and settings 'Grass'.
ttab -t 'How Green Was My Valley' -s Grass

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

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

# Open a new tab, execute a command, wait for a keypress, and exit.
ttab eval 'ls "$HOME/Library/Application Support"; echo Press a key to exit.; read -rsn 1; exit'

Usage

Find concise usage information below; for complete documentation, read the manual online, or, once installed, run man ttab (ttab --man if installed manually).

$ ttab --help


Opens a new terminal tab or window in OS X's Terminal application or iTerm.

    ttab [-w] [-s <settings>] [-t <title>] [-g|-G] [-d <dir>] [<cmd> [<arg>...]]

    -w                  open new tab in new terminal window
    -s <settings>       assign a settings set (profile)
    -t <title>          specify title for new tab (not supported in iTerm)
    -g                  create tab in background (don't activate Terminal/iTerm)
    -G                  create tab in background and don't activate new tab
    -d <dir>            specify working directory
    <cmd> [<arg>...]    command to execute in the new tab

Standard options: --help, --man, --version, --home

License

Copyright (c) 2015-2016 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)
• marked-man (D)
• replace (D)
• semver (D)
• tap (D)
• urchin (D)

Changelog

Versioning complies with semantic versioning (semver).

• v0.3.0 (2016-05-04):

  • [enhancement] Experimental support for iTerm 2 (iTerm.app) added.

• v0.2.1 (2015-09-15):

  • [dev] Makefile improvements; various other behind-the-scenes tweaks.

• v0.2.0 (2015-09-14):

  • [enhancement] You can now use embedded (escaped, if necessary) double-quotes inside a multi-command string passed via eval.
  • [doc] If installed via the npm registry, a man page is now installed (view with man ttab); if installed manually, ttab --man shows a plain-text version. ttab -h now only prints concise, single-page usage information.

• v0.1.8 (2015-09-11):

  • [doc] Incorrect new-window option corrected in examples.
  • [doc, dev] Read-me improved together with the Makefile to turn off syntax highlighting for the CLI help chapter.

• v0.1.7 (2015-06-26):

  • [doc] Read-me: npm badge changed to shields.io; license badge added.
  • [dev] Makefile updated.

• v0.1.6 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Read-me improvements; typo in CLI usage help fixed.

• v0.1.5 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Improved CLI usage help.

• 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.