OSX CLI for opening a new terminal tab/window, optionally with a command to execute and/or display settings
Contents
A macOS (OS X) CLI for programmatically opening a new terminal tab/window in the standard terminal application, Terminal,
or in popular alternative iTerm2, optionally with a command to execute and/or a specific title and specific display settings.
Note: iTerm2 support is experimental in that it is currently not covered by the automated tests run before every release.
Important: Irrespective of installation method, Terminal / iTerm2 (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
With Node.js or io.js installed, install from the npm registry:
[sudo] npm install ttab -g
Note:
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.-g ensures global installation and is needed to put ttab in your system's $PATH.bash script as ttab.chmod +x ttab.$PATH, such as /usr/local/bin.# 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 "$HOME/Library/Application Support"
# Open a new tab and execute *multiple* commands in it - note how the entire
# command line is specified as *single, quoted string*.
ttab -t 'git branch; git status'
# Open a new tab, switch to the specified dir., then execute the specified
# command before showing the prompt.
ttab -d ~/Library/Application\ Support ls -1
# Open a new tab with title 'How Green Was My Valley' and settings 'Grass'.
ttab -t 'How Green Was My Valley' -s Grass
# Open a new tab and execute the specified script before showing the prompt.
ttab /path/to/someScript
# Open a new tab, execute the specified script, and exit.
ttab exec /path/to/someScript
# Open a new tab, execute a command, wait for a keypress, and exit.
ttab 'ls "$HOME/Library/Application Support"; echo Press a key to exit.; read -rsn 1; exit'
# Open a new tab in iTerm2 (if installed).
ttab -a iTerm2 echo 'Hi from iTerm2.'
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 iTerm2.
ttab [-w] [-s <settings>] [-t <title>] [-q] [-g|-G] [-d <dir>] [<cmd> ...]
-w open new tab in new terminal window
-s <settings> assign a settings set (profile)
-t <title> specify title for new tab
-q clear the new tab's screen
-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
-a Terminal|iTerm2 open tab or window in Terminal.app / iTerm2
<cmd> ... command to execute in the new tab
"<cmd> ...; ..." multi-command command line (passed as single operand)
Standard options: --help, --man, --version, --home
Copyright (c) 2015-2016 Michael Klement mklement0@gmail.com (http://same2u.net), released under the MIT license.
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.
Versioning complies with semantic versioning (semver).
v0.5.0 (2016-10-01):
-q now allows clearing the "screen" of the new tab after
opening using clear, assuming any command (list) passed succeeded.eval command.-t <title>, no
attempt is made anymore to auto-derive a meaningful tab title from the
shell command specified, as there is no heuristic that works well in all
cases.v0.4.0 (2016-09-13):
-a Terminal|iTerm2 now allows specifying the target Terminal
application, which is useful for launching ttab from non-terminal applications
such as Alfred.ttab to report a nonzero exit code.v0.3.1 (2016-06-03):
v0.3.0 (2016-05-04):
iTerm.app) added.v0.2.1 (2015-09-15):
v0.2.0 (2015-09-14):
eval.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):
v0.1.7 (2015-06-26):
v0.1.6 (2015-06-01):
v0.1.5 (2015-06-01):
v0.1.4 (2015-06-01):
package.json.make browse now opens the GitHub repo in the default browser.v0.1.3 (2015-06-01):
v0.1.2 (2015-06-01):
v0.1.1 (2015-06-01):
v0.1.0 (2015-06-01):
FAQs
OSX CLI for opening a new terminal tab/window, optionally with a command to execute and/or display settings
The npm package ttab receives a total of 23,874 weekly downloads. As such, ttab popularity was classified as popular.
We found that ttab demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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