Contents

• ttab — programmatically open a new terminal tab or window
• Installation
  • Installation via Homebrew (macOS only)
  • Installation from the npm registry
  • Manual installation
• Examples
• Usage
• License
  • Acknowledgements
  • npm dependencies
• Changelog

ttab — programmatically open a new terminal tab or window

A CLI for Unix-like platforms that programmatically opening a new terminal tab/window in one of the following terminal applications, optionally with a command to execute and/or a specific title and specific display settings (profile).

• On macOS: either Terminal (the default terminal emulator) or popular alternative iTerm2.
• On Linux, Gnome Terminal (gnome-terminal), thanks to a contribution by @ksvirsky.
• Note: ttab does not support Windows; consider using the Windows Terminal-based wttab utility there.

Note: iTerm2 and gnome-terminal support is currently not covered by the automated tests run before every release.

Installation

Important: On macOS, 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.

Installation via Homebrew (macOS only)

With Homebrew installed, run the following:

• Initial installation:

brew tap mklement0/ttab https://github.com/mklement0/ttab.git
brew install mklement0/ttab/ttab

• Later updates:

brew upgrade mklement0/ttab/ttab

Note:

• The Homebrew version may lag behind the npm registry version if later versions relate solely to the Linux-only Gnome Terminal functionality.
• To remove ttab later, run brew rm ttab.

Installation from the npm registry

With Node.js installed, install from the npm registry:

• Initial installation:

  [sudo] npm install ttab -g
  

• Later update:

  [sudo] npm upgrade ttab -g
  

Note:

• Whether you need sudo depends on how you installed Node.js and whether you've changed permissions later; if you get an EACCES error, try again with sudo.
• The -g ensures global installation and is needed to put ttab in your system's $PATH.
• To remove ttab later, run [sudo] npm rm ttab -g.

Manual installation

• Download this bash script as ttab.
• Make it executable with chmod +x ttab.
• Move it to a folder in your $PATH, such as /usr/local/bin.

Examples

# Open a new tab in the current terminal window.
ttab

# Open a new tab in a new terminal window.
ttab -w

# Open new horizontal split tab in the current terminal window:
ttab -h

# Open new vertical split tab in the current terminal window, changing the path to the
# given path, but without checking the presence of the target directory:
ttab -v -i -d "$HOME/Library/Application Support"

# 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 the specified command *after a delay* of 0.8 secs,
# to accommodate shells with lengthy initialization-file processing.
# Note: You may preset the delay via environment variable TTAB_CMD_DELAY
ttab -l 0.8 ls -1

# Open a new tab and execute *multiple* commands in it - note how the entire
# command line is specified as *single, quoted string*.
ttab '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'.
# See the note re use of -t in iTerm2 below.
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.'

# Execute the command in the current tab of the current terminal window:
ttab -c 'ls "$HOME/Library/Application Support"'

Usage

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, on macOS in either Terminal.app or  
iTerm2.app; on Linux in Gnome Terminal, if available.

    ttab [-w|-v|-h|-c] [-i] [-s <settings>] [-t <title>] [-q] [-g|-G] [-d <dir>] [<cmd> ...]

    -w                  Open new tab in new terminal window.
    -v                  iTerm only: create a new vertical split
    -h                  iTerm only: create a new horizontal split
    -c                  Terminal/iTerm only: do not open any new window or
                        tab, run in the current tab of the current window.
    -i                  Suppress up-front verification of the existence of
                        the target directory specified via the -d option.
    -s <settings>       Assign a settings set (profile).
    -t <title>          Specify title for new tab.
    -q                  Clear the new tab's screen.
    -g                  Terminal/iTerm only: create in background (don't
                        activate application).
    -G                  Terminal/iTerm: don't activate new tab and create in
                        background.
                        gnome-terminal: don't activate new tab, except with -w.
    -d <dir>            Specify working directory; -d '' disables inheriting
                        the current dir. in Terminal/iTerm.
    -l <secs>           Terminal/iTerm only: delay startup command submission;
                        may be preset via env. var. TTAB_CMD_DELAY
    -a Terminal | iTerm Open the new tab in the given terminal app on macOS.
    <cmd> ...           Command to execute in the new tab.
    "<cmd> ...; ..."    Multi-command command line (passed as single operand).

Standard options: --help, --man, --version, --home

Note to iTerm2 users: The -t option for specifying a title only works if the new tab's active profile is configured to show the session name in the title, which can be configured via the Preferences dialog as shown by @francis-lookback here.

License

Copyright (c) 2015-2024 Michael Klement [email protected] (http://same2u.net), released under the MIT license.

Acknowledgements

A thank you to all contributors to this repo, especially the following major ones:

• @ksvirsky
• @HofiOne

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.

npm dependencies

• doctoc (D)
• json (D)
• marked (D)
• marked-man (D)
• replace (D)
• semver (D)
• tap (D)
• urchin (D)

Changelog

Versioning complies with semantic versioning (semver).

• v0.9.0 (2024-05-22):

  • [enhancement] Thanks to @HofiOne, ttab now supports new macOS-focused options, -h, -v, -c, and -i, which notably includes support for splitting the current tab horizontally (-h) or vertically (-v) in iTerm2.
  • [fix] Attempts to use options that are not supported in the target terminal now consistently result in errors.
  • [breaking change] Since -h now requests horizontal splitting, it can no longer be used to invoke help; use --help instead.

• v0.8.0 (2023-01-12):

  • [enhancement] New -l option / env. var. TTAB_CMD_DELAY allows specifying a delay before submitting a startup command to a new tab, to accommodate shells whose initialization-file processing takes a while (iTerminal / iTerm2 only).

• v0.7.3 (2022-08-11):

  • [fix] for #43; the way that keeping the shell alive is emulated in Gnome Terminal now also works when the startup command is aborted with Ctrl-C.

• v0.7.2 (2021-10-26):

  • [fix] for #39; ttab now works correctly when iTerm's "Exclude from Dock and ⌘-Tab Application Switcher" preference is enabled, albeit without support for -g and -G, for technical reasons.

• v0.7.1 (2021-04-06):

  • [fix] Fix for #13: -g and -G now work in macOS Big Sur too.

• v0.7.0 (2020-08-24):

  • [enhancement] Thanks to @ksvirsky, ttab is now also available on Linux, assuming gnome-terminal is available.

• v0.6.1 (2017-11-08):

  • [fix] macOS 10.13 (High Sierra compatibility), which makes -G work again.
  • [installation] Homebrew formula added (added post-release, on 2019-12-22).

• v0.6.0 (2017-06-21):

  • [enhancement] -d '' now prevents ttab from implicitly changing to what it thinks the working directory should be; useful for creating tabs/windows that set their own working directory.

• v0.5.1 (2017-03-23):

  • [doc] Sample command fixed.
  • [dev] Reliability of tests improved.

• v0.5.0 (2016-10-01):

  • [new feature] -q now allows clearing the "screen" of the new tab after opening using clear, assuming any command (list) passed succeeded.
  • [enhancement] A quoted multi-command shell command string can now be specified as a single - and only - operand, without having to precede with an explicit eval command.
  • [behavior change] If no custom title is specified with -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.
  • [fix] Issue #7: iTerm2 now also preserves the current working dir. when opening a new tab in the current window.

• v0.4.0 (2016-09-13):

  • [enhancement] -a Terminal|iTerm2 now allows specifying the target Terminal application, which is useful for launching ttab from non-terminal applications such as Alfred.
  • [fix] Specifying a syntactically invalid shell command to execute in the new tab now causes ttab to report a nonzero exit code.

• v0.3.1 (2016-06-03):

  • [enhancement] Support for iTerm2 v3 added (whose AppleScript syntax changed fundamentally)
  • [enhancement] Setting a tab title is now also supported in iTerm2 v2.

• v0.3.0 (2016-05-04):

  • [enhancement] Experimental support for iTerm2 (iTerm.app) added.

• v0.2.1 (2015-09-15):

  • [dev] Makefile improvements; various other behind-the-scenes tweaks.

• v0.2.0 (2015-09-14):

  • [enhancement] You can now use embedded (escaped, if necessary) double-quotes inside a multi-command string passed via eval.
  • [doc] If installed via the npm registry, a man page is now installed (view with 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):

  • [doc] Incorrect new-window option corrected in examples.
  • [doc, dev] Read-me improved together with the Makefile to turn off syntax highlighting for the CLI help chapter.

• v0.1.7 (2015-06-26):

  • [doc] Read-me: npm badge changed to shields.io; license badge added.
  • [dev] Makefile updated.

• v0.1.6 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Read-me improvements; typo in CLI usage help fixed.

• v0.1.5 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Improved CLI usage help.

• v0.1.4 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Improved CLI usage help; keywords added to package.json.
  • [dev] make browse now opens the GitHub repo in the default browser.

• v0.1.3 (2015-06-01):

  • [fix] The -g and -G options again correctly do not activate Terminal.app when creating the desired tab.
  • [enhancement] Option parsing now accepts option-arguments directly attached to the option.
  • [dev] Tests added.

• v0.1.2 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] Manual-installation link and instructions fixed; examples fixed.

• v0.1.1 (2015-06-01):

  • [doc] README.md improved with respect to manual installation instructions.

• v0.1.0 (2015-06-01):

  • Initial release.