terminal-shortcuts

Save time and keystrokes by defining shortcuts for often-visited paths when navigating folders in the terminal.

~ $ ts-add proj /Users/me/Documents/projects
 
~ $ ts proj
 
~/Documents/projects $

Getting Started

The toolkit consists of three parts

1. the ts-lookup tool
   • given a shortcut, this tool returns a target path
2. the ts-add and ts-rm tools
   • adds and removes shortcut to/from the shortcut file
3. batch and shell scripts
   • ts - batch script, acts like cd and changes directory to whatever the given shortcut expands to (windows only)
   • ts-cd / ts-pushd - shell script wrappers for cd and pushd, though these can't be run directly (read more below)

Install them all globally:

npm install terminal-shortcuts -g

Add some shortcuts:

$ ts-add docs /Users/user/Documents
$ ts-add proj /Users/user/Documents/projects

Test the setup in a terminal/console window: run ts-lookup <shortcut> and make sure it prints the corresponding target, e.g.:

$ ts-lookup docs
/Users/user/Documents
 
$ ts-lookup proj
/Users/user/Documents/projects
 

Shell setup (Linux / OS X)

Because shell scripts run in a sub-shell when executed, they cannot change directory of the parent shell. To make the ts-cd and ts-pushd scripts work as intended, set up aliases that source the scripts:

# create aliases 
$ alias ts="source ts-cd"
$ alias tsp="source ts-pushd"
 
# use alias to change directory using the ts-cd script: 
$ ts proj
 
# make sure we end up in the expected directory: 
/Users/user/Documents/project $

If you use bash, add the aliases to ~/.bash_profile to make them available in all shells. Also, feel free to use whatever aliases you like - I prefer go rather than ts, but I guess it might clash if you're programming with go-lang.

Shortcut format

Define shortcuts in any of the following formats:

• docs:/Users/user/Documents - maps a shortcut, docs to a path /Users/user/Documents
• proj:<docs>/projects - maps a shortcut, proj to a path /Users/user/Documents/projects using another shortcut docs as base
• src:<proj>/*/src - maps a shortcut src to a path /Users/user/Documents/projects/x/src using the current working directory as a base, i.e:
  • /Users/user/Documents/projects/project-a/src if the cwd is anywhere below /Users/user/Documents/projects/project-a
  • /Users/user/Documents/projects/project-b/src if the cwd is anywhere below /Users/user/Documents/projects/project-b
  • very useful for projects that have a deep, but known, directory structure and you need to navigate wihtin it regardless of what project you're currently working in

Also:

• Any shortcut that is not found is treated as a literal folder name, so e.g. ts-lookup bogus will return bogus.
• Arguments can be "chained" so that e.g. ts-lookup proj a dist docs will return /Users/user/Documents/projects/a/dist/docs, assuming that path exists

Contributing

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.

Release History

1.1.0

* added command `ts-add` to add shortcuts from the command line
* added command `ts-rm` to remove shortcuts from the command line

1.0.0

* Inital release