A better terminal experience

Some tools I’ve picked up from working at GuideSpark include an OS X terminal replacement called iTerm2, and a shell replacement called Fish (Friendly Interactive Shell). There are probably tons of features but the main ones that stick out for me are:

• Split-pane windows: so you can have multiple instances in one window.
• Git integration: the input line will be prefixed with some useful information on the current repository if you are inside a Git directory. The screenshot above, for example, shows I’m on the master branch and the green colour tells me there are no local uncommitted changes.
• Autocomplete: This setup has a really nifty autocomplete, helping as you type with previous commands and directory names. It also lets you change directory without typing ‘cd’.

I won’t go through the whole installation process, but I can tell you what I have installed. This blog post by Stefan Bleibinhaus was also very useful. I have installed:

• iTerm2
• Fish (recommended using Brew, like this)
• Oh-My-Fish (for managing themes and stuff)
• Agnoster theme (command: “omf theme agnoster”, there are other good ones)

Now to get the nice arrows in the Git line, you need to install the powerline fonts (or a single one that you like, I’m using Sauce Code Powerline), and set them to be both the regular font and non-ASCII font in an iTerm2 profile.

You could spend quite a while fiddling around with it (also try the Solarized Dark theme for iTerm), so have fun.