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:

brew tap mklement0/ttab https://github.com/mklement0/ttab.git
brew install 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 upgrade ttab to the latest version, run brew upgrade ttab.
To remove ttab later, run brew rm ttab.

Installation from the npm registry

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

[sudo] npm install 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.

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 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.'

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] [-s <settings>] [-t <title>] [-q] [-g|-G] [-d <dir>] [<cmd> ...]

    -w                  Open new tab in new terminal window.
    -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

Acknowledgements

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

Changelog

Versioning complies with semantic versioning (semver).

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.

mklement0/ttab

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