

ITerm2 1.0 Released - creativeembassy
http://www.iterm2.com/#/section/home

======
creativeembassy
I've been using this replacement for Terminal.app while it's been in beta, and
it's fantastic. It natively supports splitting, windowing, and tabs, and it
has great keyboard shortcuts for navigation between all of your windows. It
also has fullscreen mode (and top-of-screen mode) if you like to dedicate a
Space to it. There's a Solarized theme for it if you're into that sort of
thing. It supports Growl if you can't stand not being bugged about unnecessary
information (or you can turn it off if you're the productive type).

This is the very first thing I install on a new Mac for development. I highly
recommend it.

~~~
ams6110
Terminal.app has tabs, at least as of Snow Leopard. Also does split panes (but
they are the same session). I use Terminal quite a lot but have not found it
lacking enough to consider replacing it.

~~~
bdunbar
One feature of iTerm that we've come to depend on is 'Send input to all
sessions'.

Don't use it often, but I'm glad it is there.

------
niels_olson
some other resources for those interested in terminal apps, what are some
others?

Guake: <http://guake.org/>

Yakuake: <http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=29153>

Visor: <http://visor.binaryage.com/>

SIMBL: <http://www.culater.net/software/SIMBL/SIMBL.php>

Solarized: <http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized>

~~~
tomislav
Solarized color theme for OS X Lion Terminal.app:
[https://github.com/tomislav/osx-lion-terminal.app-colors-
sol...](https://github.com/tomislav/osx-lion-terminal.app-colors-solarized)

------
tptacek
I wasn't a fan of iTerm "1". What's new in 2? Someone got a summary? I don't
see it on their site.

~~~
tednaleid
I switched to terminal from iTerm 1. I switched to iTerm 2 from terminal
because of:

\- true split windows (cmd-d horizontal, cmd-shift-d vertical), as many as you
can fit

\- good split window navigation (cmd-opt-arrow)

\- "save" window split setup - cmd-shift-s to save, cmd-shift-r to restore

\- better search, all from the command line

\- full 256 color support without any hacks

\- copy to clipboard on selection option (similar to windows shell if you're
familiar with that)

\- fullscreen mode with cmd-enter

\- better speed than iTerm 1 (comparable to terminal, the reason I switched to
it in the first place)

(I don't think I've remapped the above keys, but if I have, easy key remapping
is another nice thing about iTerm2 :)

~~~
jrockway
So tmux with a shiny 200x200 icon?

~~~
shabble
One of the features slated for v1.1 or thereabouts is deep integration with
tmux.

<http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/wiki/TmuxIntegration> and
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ABI0kqUUxoAjxhWW3AsWFis6...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ABI0kqUUxoAjxhWW3AsWFis6bgvMoEbcTcA2N21ncmU/edit?hl=en&authkey=COHZn78P&pli=1)
have some details on how it might work.

(Also, learn the difference between a terminal multiplexer, and a terminal
emulator :p)

~~~
irahul
> (Also, learn the difference between a terminal multiplexer, and a terminal
> emulator :p)

What difference the name makes? If this shiny new terminal emulator is touting
something which a terminal multiplexer already does, from a user perspective,
his reply is legit.

~~~
shabble
A terminal multiplexer is a way to create and access multiple ttys from a
single terminal (-emulator). Both of the most widely known (GNU Screen and
tmux) are terminal-only apps - They require a terminal or terminal emulator to
act as their user interface.

Terminal emulators, as the name suggest, emulate terminals. Since most people
don't tend to use dedicated VT100s any more, we use emulators like xterm,
rxvt, Terminal.app, etc instead.

A mux without an emulator to access it is pretty useless, whereas an emulator
with some mux features can provide benefits not easily achievable with a
standalone multiplexer.

One example would be mouse-based text selection. Using vertical splits in
tmux, and triple-clicking to select a full line will select the contents of
both split regions, whereas a GUI app can limit it to one region. I'm sure
there are plenty of other features.

~~~
irahul
> A terminal multiplexer is a way to create and access multiple ttys from a
> single terminal (-emulator).

Thanks. I know that and use screen, and the post we are discussing mentions
tmux, so he knows it as well.

> whereas an emulator with some mux features can provide benefits not easily
> achievable with a standalone multiplexer.

The op was being snarky but that was the whole point. iterm2 doesn't seem to
be giving something which we(in a generic sense; I use linux and have nothing
to do with iterm) want and aren't already doing in the current
emulator/multiplexer setup.

> One example would be mouse-based text selection. Using vertical splits in
> tmux, and triple-clicking to select a full line will select the contents of
> both split regions, whereas a GUI app can limit it to one region. I'm sure
> there are plenty of other features.

I don't use tmux but that's the behavior in gnu screen vertical split as well.

~~~
shabble
>> A terminal multiplexer is a way to create and access multiple ttys from a
single terminal (-emulator).

> Thanks. I know that and use screen, and the post we are discussing mentions
> tmux, so he knows it as well.

You asked what the difference was. I told you.

>> whereas an emulator with some mux features can provide benefits not easily
achievable with a standalone multiplexer.

> The op was being snarky but that was the whole point. iterm2 doesn't seem to
> be giving something which we(in a generic sense; I use linux and have
> nothing to do with iterm) want and aren't already doing in the current
> emulator/multiplexer setup.

Yes, I got that as well. My point is that it is in fact nothing at all like
"tmux with an icon"; It's a terminal emulator, which happens to:

a) be better in various ways than hte Terminal.app that ships with OSX
(256-color support, for a start. See upthread for many more).

b) have some features which overlap with dedicated terminal muxes, like tmux.
If you look at the links I mentioned, the idea is to make iTerm recognise
you're using tmux (even on a remote host), and translate its split panels into
GUI split panels, amongst other things.

So yes, it does (or will) provide additional features.

>> One example would be mouse-based text selection. Using vertical splits in
tmux, and triple-clicking to select a full line will select the contents of
both split regions, whereas a GUI app can limit it to one region. I'm sure
there are plenty of other features.

>I don't use tmux but that's the behavior in gnu screen vertical split as
well.

Precisely. But iTerm2, being a GUI terminal emulator, _can_ do that. That is a
feature.

~~~
irahul
> You asked what the difference was. I told you.

I didn't ask what the difference was. I asked what difference it makes what
difference the name makes in context of knowing the difference between tmux
and iterm2 - what is terminal emulator and what is terminal mux and what is a
combo, as long as it gives me what I want.

I believe the discussion was centered around why would someone switch to
iterm2.

------
xer0x
+1. This is a great OSX terminal app. I love how quickly it has grown and
improved.

I encourage more folks to try it out. You'll love the color themes, split
windows, built-in visor hot-keys, and more.

~~~
jharding
I downloaded iTerm2 about 20 minutes ago and I already love it. Anybody know
of any downsides of using it over Terminal.app?

~~~
ulvund
I have a hard time changing functionality of the __alt __key between alt and
meta. I Terminal.app I just go to preferences and it is there. Here it takes a
little more..

~~~
brettnak
Preferences -> Keys -> Remap Modifier Keys

For anyone who is interested.

------
johnbender

        #container { margin: 0 15%; }
    

looks much better as

    
    
        #container { margin: 0 auto; }
    

I expect downvotes but its a great app and it deserves a great website.

------
TylerE
Does the font rendering seem very different to anyone else? Using the same
font (Anonymous Pro 14pt), I had to increase the vertical spacing from 1.0 (as
it was in iTerm) to ~1.18 to get the same spacing. Bold is rendered
differently (worse) too. It does seem quite a bit snappier on my old G5
though.

Comparison shot: iTerm on the left, iterm2 on right:
<http://i.imgur.com/9yA8y.png>

~~~
thenduks
Off-topic: Something interesting about the aesthetics of text to point out
here. I had to double-take which you said was left and which was right. I was
sure that you were saying the _left_ was iTerm2, because to me the one on the
right has clearly superior text rendering ( _especially_ the bold)!

------
icefox
Woot 0 cpu usage when it isn't doing anything!

~~~
mitchty
I never got into iTerm1, was this an issue?

~~~
jpitz
Oh yes double plus yes yes yes.

------
kungfooguru
I don't use screen locally so when I ssh into boxes and use screen I'm not
screen in screen and have to double-a. So I like tabs.

A feature that would be awesome (if it doesn't exist, by default at least it
doesn't) is being able to have tabs per split.

OSX's window manager is so poor in my opinion that I would love to be able to
have a full screen iterm2 but I like to have one terminal on the left and one
on the right which has many tabs -- just helps with the cluster I'm dealing
with. So without being able to have tabs only on the right split I have to use
two iterm2s.

Just a thought.

------
andrewf
I mainly use iTerm2 because, unlike Terminal.app, it has gpm support. Being
able to use a mouse while editing files over an SSH connection, without having
to think about it, is a big win.

------
scottschulthess
Great job developers of iTerm2, it's really a pleasure to use on a day to day
basis, if only it had really cool integration with tmux so I could actually
use tmux instead of hate on it.

~~~
shapeshed
I have been using tmux with the beta. After a bit of key remapping it works
great.

~~~
scottschulthess
I have been using tmux occasionally to, but the key mappings kill me. I just
want it to be one stroke, not chorded...so what I want really is for an iterm
window to behave like a tmux session, with tabs being windows etc

------
peterb
ITerm2 combined with zsh and oh-my-zsh gives you super powers.

~~~
danishkhan
I agree. I was a bash user for the longest time and iterm2 with oh-my-zsh is
the best thing ever.

------
dkastner
I forked tmuxinator to generate the appropriate applescript that will set up
iTerm according to your tmuxinator config:
[https://github.com/dkastner/tmuxinator/commit/c96d04d994cd8c...](https://github.com/dkastner/tmuxinator/commit/c96d04d994cd8cd0d6a4f16491225ea561d0d50f)

------
ducktype
Wow, looks like they've fixed most of the problems I had with it in the past.
The one thing I still miss from yakuake is to be able to select split-panes by
numeric hotkey. Seems like you can only do it for separate tabs and windows,
but my preferred workspace is a 2x2 visor window.

~~~
gnachman
There's a feature request open for this. Haven't figured out the details yet,
but I want to make it easy to assign a keystroke to a session (like how RTS
games let you define groups of vehicles/soldiers). Maybe in 1.1...

------
beck5
Been playing with it this evening and it will be replacing terminal for me. I
also found this nice collection of themes to pimp it out a little:

<https://github.com/baskerville/iTerm-2-Color-Themes>

~~~
creativeembassy
Good find! Here's the link to the Solarized color theme for iTerm2 as well.

[https://github.com/altercation/solarized/tree/master/iterm2-...](https://github.com/altercation/solarized/tree/master/iterm2-colors-
solarized)

------
grandalf
This looks great. Two questions:

\- How does one change the background color for the panes that don't have
focus? The black vs charcoal distinction is a bit too subtle for me.

\- Is it possible to map command-` to cycle between panes? If so, how?

~~~
shabble
1) I don't think you can change the colour, but you can adjust the dimming
level with:

defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2 SplitPaneDimmingAmount -float 0.25 #
[range from 0-1.0, lower is darker]

Maybe add a feature request for a 'inactive panes colour' widget to be added
to the Profile colours tab.

NB: Changing the dim amount seems to require a restart of iTerm to take
effect.

2) Set a global keybinding (Prefs->Keys-> \+ button) to 'Select Menu Item...'
from the very bottom of the list, and specify 'Next Pane' (no quotes) in the
text field.

~~~
grandalf
thanks!

------
mrkva
Quick question - is it possible to underline links a let them be opened by
single click?

~~~
shabble
It's an open feature request. The current issue is finding a way to do so
efficiently. Adding a mouse tracking region for each link (and moving it every
time you scroll) is impractical, and I'm not well enough versed in the display
storage structures to know how easily you could get the bounding box of a link
and hit-test for it without a performance hit.

Cmd-clicking them works though.

------
draebek
I find iTerm/iTerm 2 invaluable for full screen mode, ability to turn off
scroll bars (and still have a scroll back buffer--can't do this in
Terminal.app and it kills me), and copy-on-select.

------
deweller
I'd like to try iTerm2, but "groups" in Terminal.app is a must-have feature
for me.

Anyone know of a workaround for iTerm2 that will let me save a group of
windows and starting commands?

~~~
shabble
There's Applescript support, so you could probably cobble together a script
that'd launch your multiple windows & commands.

There's also Window->Save Window Arrangement, but I believe that only allows
for a single arrangement.

Feel free to add a feature request at
<http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/issues/list> (There's plans for eventually
moving everything over to github, but the issues will get migrated too)

I'm working on improving the preferences UI and back-end, but I'm learning
obj-c and Cocoa as I go, so it's a slowish process :)

------
angerman
Awesome! iTerm + zsh... If only I could disable the scrollbar :/ On a related
note, is there a show/hide animation like Visor too? I liked the "slide
in/slide out" animation a lot.

~~~
jacobbijani
You can hide the scrollbar. Preferences -> Appearance -> Check "Hide scrollbar
and resize control"

------
phlyingpenguin
Is there a changelog somewhere obvious that I'm missing? It appears I've gone
from 0.20 to 1.0, what am I getting here? The one in the source tree appears
to be quite out of date.

~~~
creativeembassy
I believe most of the features in their feature list were added since 0.2. I'm
reading this now, and finding features that I've been needing and didn't
realize they were done already.

<http://www.iterm2.com/#/section/features>

------
singingwolfboy
The SVN repo doesn't have a tag for version 1.0. I know it's a quibble, but
it's useful for people who maintain package managers like Macports. :(

~~~
gnachman
Fixed now. Googlecode truncates the listing in the web view, but it's under
tags/v1_0_0

~~~
singingwolfboy
Thank you! It's now updated in Macports, as well. :)

------
markbao
iTerm 2 is essential.

------
jcoder
I just think it's interesting that iTerm2 has one author, but iterm2.com has
three.

~~~
shabble
<http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/wiki/Credits> has a comprehensive list of
contributors, but (I think) the fork from iTerm to iTerm2 and vast majority of
the development has been done by George.

Regarding the website, I'd guess a couple of people volunteered to make it
shiny and accessible, but the docs and whatnot were (and mostly still are) on
the googlecode project wiki.

------
fedorabbit
split pane seems to require configuration since default is "cmd+d" which is
set to be shown desktop on some mac.

------
joshu
How do I switch between split windows?

~~~
dboyd
I find turning on 'focus-follows-mouse' to be a great asset. Then I just hover
over the pane I want.

------
shapeshed
happy beta user here rolling zsh with tmux and solarized. Looks great, works
great

------
nnutter
-1, click through three pages to get from "Download" to an actual download.

------
ahmetalpbalkan
I love iTERM!

------
SeoxyS
You have to be kidding me, right? This app is so bloated and unpolished—it
really doesn't feel like it belongs on the Mac. I'll take OSX Lion's sleek
Terminal.app over iTerm any day. My favorite new feature, it lets you
customize ANSI colors!

Screenshot of Lion Terminal:

[http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/kenneth_%E2%80%94_vim-20110707-1...](http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/kenneth_%E2%80%94_vim-20110707-120545.png)

Edit: I know I'm going to get tons of downvotes for this. But it's my opinion
that something sleek and simple is much more powerful than something with tons
of bells and whistles, especially when it doesn't look very good.

Edit2: To all those who bring up window splitting, the default terminal app
does it too, as well as native fullscreen:

[http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/Screen_Shot_2011-07-07_at_12.30....](http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/Screen_Shot_2011-07-07_at_12.30.42_PM-20110707-123055.png)

~~~
oomkiller
Have you used it recently? It was really buggy/slow a few months ago, but has
improved drastically.

~~~
ideamonk
I've been using it since last 7 months. This version definitely seems
speedier, I'm talking about the lags in bringing up new tabs/windows in
previous versions.

Moreover I love the simplicity of its key combinations - CMD + left right.

CMD+^+E -> A nice expose style overview for all your tabs.

Though their search is horribly slow.

