
Alias.sh: for finding, sharing and storing bash aliases - mambodog
http://alias.sh/?hn
======
arcatek
Command line fu (<http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse>) already
contains a pretty big collection of useful shell snippets, I'm not sure that
making another website will help.

[edit] However, I have to admit that I prefer your design. :)

~~~
mambodog
One thing that isn't really highlighted as much as it should be is that you
can directly grab or source your opted-in aliases, eg.

    
    
        wget -q -O - "$@" https://alias.sh/user/[userid]/alias >> ~/.bash_aliases
    

or, if you like to live dangerously:

    
    
        source <(wget -q -O - "$@" https://alias.sh/user/[userid]/alias)

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fschwehn
for me the wget thing doesn't work. i get some aliases, but not those i have
been adding to my list.

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benjy14
fschwehn, can you try again. We picked the bug up you were describing.

Also aliases are meant to be public. We may have private aliases in the
future.

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated.

~~~
fschwehn
thanks, now works like a charm!

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thomseddon
Heart almost skipped a beat when first glanced at the welcome email, last two
lines:

username: thomseddon password: Your password

With the actual text "Your password", Phew!! Not quite sure it's necessary to
include this line, for the sake of your users cardiovascular health you may
wish to consider removing it!

(Oh, do really like this site, started using it already as you can see!)

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roevhat
I don't know if it is my browser, but to me I get the feeling the site is
disabled, with the very darkend colors. It's almost as if a modal is showing,
and the rest of the page is faded out - but I can't see no modal. Just my
first impressions. But other than that: Really cool - going straight to the
bookmarks!

~~~
decad
Had the exact same reaction when I first opened the site, thought my eyes had
gone funny.

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sleepyscene
Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I did the design for the site.

Tonight I'm planning on bumping up the contrast and it seems calibrating my
monitor also ;)

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peter_l_downs
This looks great! The 'freq' alias is new to me -- very cool. I would find
this more useful were I not to have to create an account before uploading my
aliases.

~~~
trampy9010
Yeah, sorting your bash history helps highlight what you spend most of your
time doing and if that can be cut down at all.

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l-p
Top two are wrong… Not a good thing. It's always the same badly written
snippets that get copy-pasted across websites without anyone really
understanding what it does (hence the copy/paste).

> alias servethis="python -c 'import SimpleHTTPServer;
> SimpleHTTPServer.test()'"
    
    
        python -m SimpleHTTPServer # python 3
        python -m http.server # Python 3
    
    

> extract () { /* useless stuff */ }
    
    
       tar xf

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benjy1
python one works fine for me. I tried tar xf on a zip file and it didn't work?

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qu4z-2
tar xf doesn't work on zip, rar, 7z, or plain compressed files (ie log.gz
instead of log.tar.gz)

Additionally I prefer "verb noun" form over "program noun", so I like extract.
I already alias open=xdg-open (so I can type "open somefile.pdf" or "open
somefile.doc", etc)

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CJefferson
This website is quite fun, except it has (for me) one fatal flaw - if I use
the automated stuff I am stuck with whatever name someone else decided to give
the alias.

For example, <http://alias.sh/open-any-file-default-command-file> I find so
useful I shorted the alias to 'o'. Now, I could make another alias with a
different name, but that seems like a bad idea..

~~~
benjy1
Nope feel free to create another alias. Aliases can be voted up or down so
eventually over time the best ones will rise to the top. Also if you want it
on your profile just add it.

We did think about this and plan on adding private aliases soon so you can add
them without cluttering the site or if you just don't want to share. :)

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glazskunrukitis
First time I visited the website I was waiting for a popup to show up because
the page seemed to have an overlay. Turns out that's the color scheme.

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ralph
I eschew aliases, using them only when necessary, e.g. when changing
directory. There's many places in Unix where a knowledgeable user can kick off
a command and in many aliases won't work. This gets annoying and is solved by
having ~/bin/... wherever possible. The overhead is minimal, many being one-
line of code starting with exec.

~~~
jackalope
I use aliases to open frequently used programs with specific configuration
files (mutt, for example, to manage multiple email accounts) or with long
complex arguments (rdesktop, for example, for connections to multiple hosts).
I also use ~/bin/ when I want something in my path that has a purpose local to
me, but can be widely deployed to the various platforms I work on. But for
one-liners that don't work as aliases (used too infrequently or not portable)
I use Makefiles. It's nice to be able to cd into a working directory and type
'make update' on any machine without trying to remember which package manager
to use and how to invoke it.

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larelli
I really like the idea, but I'd do even more so if I could install a cronjob
to automatically download a file with all aliases I previously added to my
online profile. Of course this comes with security implications you'd have to
sort out. Please do this (or let me help you with it).

Edit: I just found the feature on the site and am happy now. (:

~~~
benjy1
You can use the second command on your profile page.

source <(wget -q -O - "$@" <https://alias.sh/user/7/alias>)

This will source it every time you login. Otherwise you could easily put the
first command on your profile in a cronjob to run one daily etc.

~~~
larelli
Are you the benjy from the site? Thanks for the help.

~~~
benjy1
Yeah that's me.

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cdcarter
A search function would be great, showing just the popular tags makes it hard
to find new tricks.

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reddiculon
I agree; that and being able to tag and comment on aliases. Some way of
posting alternatives for the same task would be great too.

~~~
benjy1
Comments already exist. You can comment while logged in and viewing an alias.
You can use them to post alternatives for now. This is something that will be
considered as a new feature though in our next sprint.

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telemachos
A promising start. But it would really help if it were possible to edit
aliases you've posted. (For example, I want to clean up the tags for something
I posted, but that doesn't seem possible.)

~~~
benjy1
Editing aliases could cause a security issue. Eg if someone is using your
alias and you edited it to be malicious. We're planning on having private
aliases which will be editable.

If you have a alias you want editing then send us an email from your email on
your account and I can help you fix it up. admin at alias dot sh

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RusAlex
Keep your bash aliases at github public repository or anywhere in a private
repository. it's more easy to do git pull mydotfiles.git rather than using
copy pasting from any web resource.

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subsection1h
Nice site!

Consider using the site's name consistently. The logo is "alias", the home
page refers to "Alias.sh", and the About page refers to "alias.sh".

~~~
benjy1
Good suggestion, it's definitely something we are on the fence about. I think
"Alias" is better but it also made some of the copy sound a little confusing.

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jogloran
One of the sort criteria is "highested voted".

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sam152
Good catch, fixed.

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reddiculon
I'm sure you mean "fixded" ;)

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gelstudios
I like this, but I think the author or contributor of the alias should be made
public (like next to the vote/score buttons)

~~~
benjy1
Good suggestion. I just added it to the full page view and will consider
adding it throughout the site in the next sprint.

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kawsper
This is a little dumb

    
    
        alias process='ps -ax'
    

:)

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brianberns
Gray text on a gray background. No thanks.

~~~
mambodog
Some mates of mine threw this together, and the first thing I told them was
that someone on HN would complain about the colour scheme

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benjy14
We have a user voice account, we're posting on here looking for some useful
feedback.

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brightghost
I'm guessing you changed it since this feedback, but I really like the current
color scheme. The lighter-grey bubbles around the actual code do a nice job
directing focus to the important bits.

~~~
benjy1
It was a very subtle change but yeah we lightened it up a bit after the
feedback from this thread. We made quite a few changes actually and summarised
them here: <http://alias.sh/thank-you-hacker-news-community>

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af3
"VC thinks I need an app for my tits" (probably not a direct quote).

