iTerm Editor's Review

'iTerm' is an application that can successfully replace the built-in terminal emulation program, called The Terminal.

iTerm brings more functionality than the built-in application. It has a tabbed interface and it allows you to save bookmarks. The interface can be improved in terms of efficiency.

The tabbed functionality is implemented, but it can be improved also. The 'Default' bookmark doesn't behave well, so my suggestion is to replace it with an identical bookmark, mark the clone bookmark as default, and then delete the 'Default' one. This should make the tabbed functionality work well. The 'Default' bookmark opens a new window of iTerm, rather than a new tab.

The bookmark functionality is good. It allows you to save your custom settings and use them later into another terminal session. What I miss about a bookmark is the possibility to use another shell, than the default one from your account. An administrator account has 'bash' as the default shell. If I want to use 'tcsh', 'csh' or 'zsh' as a shell in a bookmark, you can't do that. The program doesn't allow you to pick another one. You can only use the default terminal.

The possibility to use the application in fullscreen mode is another interesting feature. This is useful, if you use a text-mode file browser such as Midnight Commander. Midnight Commander can be easily installed using MacPorts.

The 'Preferences' panel and the profile manager give you more customization options. You can also find some interesting functionality in the application's menus.

What I found in The Terminal, but I couldn't find in this application was the 'Connect to Server' feature. You can do all those things with iTerm, but you need to do them by using the CLI (Command Line Interface). The Terminal provides a nice front-end for the ssh, sftp, ftp, and telnet sessions. iTerm doesn't provide you this kind of functionality.

Pluses: It has interesting features, like tabbed interface, bookmarks, fullscreen mode.

Drawbacks / flaws: It can't use another shell as default in a bookmark. The tabbed functionality can provide you minor surprises. iTerm doesn't have the same GUI (Graphical User Interface) support for server connection, as the one implemented in The Terminal.

In conclusion: This application has some strong features, but it needs improvements. I hope the producers will keep developing this product, because iTerm looks promising.

version reviewed: 0.9.5