![]() ![]() Depending on where you are in your system, you'll be able to do different things with Terminal. They help you figure out your location and therefore what's just around you. That's why those red "You are here!" signs are so helpful. It's important to know where I am so I can plan my visit. For example, if I'm in Epcot, I can't ride the rides in Magic Kingdom. The things I can do depend on where I am in the park. You'll get the same empty line over and over! Since you're not giving the computer any actual instructions, it keeps showing you a new command line each time, waiting for your input. The prompt is the computer's way of saying "Hello, give me instructions!" □□ That's why, on the right-hand side, you have a cursor and space to type commands. The command line on your computer is a similar communication interface it's a portal in which you'll use your keyboard to type in a language the computer can read, and the computer will act out your instructions. You press "3," "0," and "Start" on a keypad in order to tell the microwave to heat something for 30 seconds. Imagine you're that you're using a microwave. This will vary per computer and per operating system! On the left-hand side of your command line within Terminal, you have what's called a prompt. You might see $, %, >, or other symbols, or you might see the name of your computer. The line is called the command line: First line when opening Terminal Let's visually break down what you see upon opening the Terminal. This is what it looks like on Mac: Command line appearance preferences Command line If you want to change the color of the text or your Terminal window to make it more snazzy, you can do so in the application's preferences. Imagine that your computer is just sitting there, waiting for instructions! ![]() Rest assured that nothing is currently happening. I see a simple dollar sign and a blinking cursor, but you might see the name of your computer too or other symbols: Terminal waiting for instructions My Terminal window looks like this, but yours is probably a different color or set of text on the left (which is fine!) When you first launch Terminal, you'll likely have an empty window with not much going on. ![]() It should also show you that there’s nothing to fear in using Terminal, so long as you take the time to learn the basics and understand what you’re doing.To start this chapter, you should open Terminal or the equivalent application you're using. Those are just a few of the most commonly used Terminal commands, but they should give you a flavour of how to use this most under-appreciated of Mac utilities. If you’re deleting files, it’s good practice to double-check, so to add a confirmation step put -i immediately before the file name. So, to remove our original test file, we’d type rm ~/Documents/Test/TestFile.rtf which will delete the file without asking for confirmation. To delete the test files, use the rm command. A command has three elements to it the command itself, which calls a specific tool, an option which modifies the command’s output, and an argument, which calls the resource on which the command will operate. Using Terminal is straightforward: you type a command on the command-line and press Return to execute it. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, however. Commands in Unix are shell-specific, so it’s important, say when you’re following tips written for a different flavour of Unix, that you use the right shell for the commands, or vice versa. You can run other shells with Terminal, but you’ll have to install those yourself. The ‘cursor’ is indicated by a shaded box. If you look at the command-line inside the window, you’ll see that each line starts with the name of the Mac and is followed by the name of the current user. The title bar of a Terminal window displays the name of the current user, the type of shell, and the size of the window in pixels. There are various types of shell Apple uses one called Bash. You launch it like any other and when you do, you’ll see Apple’s implementation of a Unix command-line environment, known as a shell. The first thing to understand about Terminal is that it’s just an application and it lives in the Utilities folder in Applications. ![]()
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