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Little known features of iTerm2

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Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#111

Post by nrclark »

rawfan wrote: post #57
nrclark wrote: post #34

Not sure whether or not this is a little-known feature. iTerm2 has _fantastic_ integration with tmux (software used for persisting a terminal session across multiple logins). Tmux can be a pretty complex piece of software, but iTerm can basically wrap it all up into a nice package. You don't need to know anything at all about tmux to use iTerm's tmux integration. If you're SSHed into a server that has tmux installed,…

So what exactly is the iTerm feature here? You are just describing regular tmux.

iTerm2 will use tmux's scripting mode to give you a "tmux without tmux" kind of experience. Scrollback will work normally, and so will opening new terminal tabs and new windows.

It doesn't give you anything if you're already comfortable with tmux. But if you want your experience to "feel" more native, it's an awesome tool.

Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#112

Post by nrclark »

nrclark wrote: post #34

Not sure whether or not this is a little-known feature. iTerm2 has _fantastic_ integration with tmux (software used for persisting a terminal session across multiple logins). Tmux can be a pretty complex piece of software, but iTerm can basically wrap it all up into a nice package. You don't need to know anything at all about tmux to use iTerm's tmux integration. If you're SSHed into a server that has tmux installed,…

Correction for those playing along at home: remove the -F from above. That was a cut/paste error on my part. Corrected version should be:

    ssh user@hostname -Ct 'sh -l -c "exec tmux -CC -u new-session -AD -s remote"'

Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#113

Post by weaksauce »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #96
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have karabiner-elements, but doesn't it basically just remap keys across your whole system (much like my mechanical keyboard can)? I don't want change my cmd-keys into control keys system wide. I just want to be able to map my cmd-keys in vim (which to be honest is the lion's share of what I use any terminal for).

Karabiner-elements is good for mapping single keys to other keys. It doesn’t handle key combinations. (There is something called complex modifiers, but I can’t figure out how to edit them.) BetterTouchTool is good for mapping key sequences. Further, it can do it selectively based on what application is active.

The complex modifiers are just a json file that’s fairly easy to edit. I have a file that has caps+hjkl to arrow keys. Caps by itself is Esc. caps with anything else is Cmd-shift-option-control+anything else. And finally right shift plus caps toggles caps lock.

Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#114

Post by mosselman »

rawfan wrote: post #57
nrclark wrote: post #34

Not sure whether or not this is a little-known feature. iTerm2 has _fantastic_ integration with tmux (software used for persisting a terminal session across multiple logins). Tmux can be a pretty complex piece of software, but iTerm can basically wrap it all up into a nice package. You don't need to know anything at all about tmux to use iTerm's tmux integration. If you're SSHed into a server that has tmux installed,…

So what exactly is the iTerm feature here? You are just describing regular tmux.

So when Volkswagen releases a new car you say "what is new here? You are just describing regular Cugnot's steam wagon?"

Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#116

Post by TurkTurkleton »

cerberusss wrote: post #54
donatj wrote: post #37

This feels like a dumb question, but is the text rendering really dark for others in iTerm2? It seems like on a black background I cannot get pure white text. It’s always a middle shade of gray for me - before and after getting a Retina display. I have messed with the colors and text rendering for literal hours over the last ten years and I genuinely cannot get it as clear and readable as Terminal.app which is a big…

iTerm -> Preferences -> Profiles tab -> Colors subtab. You'll see two columns of options. The left column is titled "Basic Colors", the right is titled "ANSI Colors". Under Basic Colors, click the color next to Foreground, and a color picker appears. Slide it to the lower-left: bright white. Now it should be fixed. But if it didn't, repeat the same procedure for the White that's at the bottom of the column ANSI Color…

There's also a setting that controls the thickness of font strokes, independent of color. I forget exactly how it's labeled (not at my Mac right now), but I remember it's a dropdown with combinations of options for using thin strokes on dark backgrounds and/or Retina displays. I believe it defaults to using thin strokes on Retina displays. I believe turning this off will make font rendering identical to Terminal. Either way, I think it looks better turned off, even on a Retina display.

Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#117

Post by hacym »

jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #85
aloer wrote: post #27

I’ve said it before: iterm2 is one of the two reasons I feel so much more productive on mac compared to Windows or Ubuntu The other one being quicklook (space preview of files)

Weird thing to say, considering both Windows and Linux-based systems are way more developer-friendly. (Windows due to VS and the rest of MS resources/docs/tools, Linux due to its package management systems natively supporting just about anything you could ever need for development. For macOS to compete, you need a plethora of best-effort or paid tools that don’t come from Apple).

Also a weird thing to say. VS is on Mac, and not everyone uses VS to develop. Mac also has brew, which is a great package manager that can replace apt and the like.

Sounds like you have a specific use case that requires you to use Windows and are projecting that on every other use case. There is a reason why Macs are used in a lot of development shops.

Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#119

Post by MockObject »

Corrado wrote: post #69

I love iTerm2 and have been using it for years. Thanks to this post I've even learned a couple of new things that make me love it even more. One thing I've been trying to get working in iTerm2 has been AWS profile badges. iTerm2 has the ability to use text "badges"[0] to give feedback about the current environment. I'm an AWS engineer and tend to switch between environments a lot, so I thought it would be great to us…

How does your shell know which environment you're in? Is it that you ssh into one environment or another one, and you want the badge to show which one you've connected to?

Re: Little known features of iTerm2

#120

Post by MockObject »

peteretep wrote: post #70
shabbyrobe wrote: post #60

iTerm2 is fantastic! It can be a bit CPU hungry but you get a stack of mod cons out of the bargain. There are tons of proprietary escape codes, not least of all the incredibly useful one for "fireworks"! [1] ^[]1337;RequestAttention=fireworks^G [1]: https://iterm2.com/documentation-escape-codes.html

To save people needing to lookup how to use that: perl -e 'print "\e]1337;RequestAttention=fireworks\007\n"'

and

   echo -e "\x1B]1337;RequestAttention=fireworks\007"
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