CholTERM
A native macOS terminal with an integrated file browser. A live file tree and a full PTY terminal share one resizable window. Click a folder and the shell is already there. The demo below plays through the whole QuickStart manual.
Stop typing long paths into cd
Many of us use a terminal every day. Typing cd followed by a long path gets old quickly, and keeping a Finder window open beside the terminal to drag folders across is not always convenient.
Before
Type the path by hand, or juggle a Finder window and a terminal window side by side.
With CholTERM
Click the folder in the tree. CholTERM sends the cd to the active shell for you, quoted correctly.
Everything in the manual, at a glance
CholTERM is intentionally minimal. These are the features the QuickStart manual covers.
Tree and terminal
- The tree opens at the boot drive root
/with$HOMEalready expanded. - Click a folder, or press Enter on it, to send
cd <path>to the shell. - Typing
cdin the terminal expands the tree to that folder and folds every folder off the path. - Paths with special characters are single-quoted, with embedded quotes escaped.
- Clicking the same folder twice sends
cdonly once. - Finder aliases to folders show a
*badge and navigate to their target.
Focus and tabs
- Tab moves focus between tree and terminal. The cursor blinks only when the terminal has focus.
- ⌘⇧N opens a new, fully independent tab.
- ⌘ + arrow keys flip forwards or backwards between terminals.
- Tab names show the working directory, or the running program's name.
- If a program such as Nano or Vim is running, clicking a folder opens a new tab there instead.
- ⌘W is disabled on the last tab. Closing the last tab quits the app.
Look and layout
- ⌘+ and ⌘− set text size from 10 to 28 pt in the focused view.
- Right-click a terminal to set its background colour, text colour and monospaced font.
- Click the tree header to reverse the sort order.
- ⌘⇧R rebuilds the tree from disk. Open folders also refresh live.
- Window size and position are restored on reopen.
Arrangements
- ⌘S saves sizes, positions, divider, font sizes and the directory of every tab.
- ⌘R restores them, restarting any program that was running.
- Settings → Automatically Open Tab Arrangement loads it at launch.
Search
- The search box above the tree filters as you type, capped at 1,000 matches.
- Click a document or app in the results to open it.
- A single match is selected automatically and focus moves to the tree.
- Clearing the search restores the tree exactly as it was.
Shell and output
- Runs your shell as a login shell, so
~/.zshrcand yourPATHload. - Full VT100 / ANSI support for colour, cursor movement, bold and underline.
- Copy, paste, and drag text in from other apps.
- ⌘E exports the terminal and its scroll-back to HTML.
Screenshots from the manual
*, the tree following the shell.
Keyboard reference
Where things live
All files sit in your Application Support folder.
~/Library/Application Support/CholTERM/WindowArrangement.json~/Library/Application Support/CholTERM/AppSettings.json~/Library/Application Support/CholTERM/CholTERM checks the licence each time it starts, so quit and reopen after adding it. The window title changes: