Sunday, May 27, 2012

Global Keyboard shortcut to launch terminal in Mac OS X

I had to restore my Mac as it screwed up while upgrading to OS X 10.7.4. After restoring from scratch I had to setup few common things like global short cut for terminal.

I followed this http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=171464

For quick reference here are the steps.

1. Launch Automator from the Applications folder

2. Choose Service

3. The line that states "Service receives selected" change it to "no input"

4. From the Action side drag to the workflow side "Launch Application"

5. For the pull down in the Launch Application action select the application you would like to launch. For Terminal you will have to go to the bottom and select "Other" and find it in the Utilities folder.

6. Save the Service giving it a unique name like Launch Terminal

7. Goto Keyboard Shortcuts tab within the Keyboard System Preferences

8. Select Services from the left pane and scroll down to General in the right pane. You should see your Service.

9. It's not so obvious, but double click to right side of your Services row. This allows you to enter a key combination for the shortcut. 

10. Enter a key combination and close System Preferences.

 

*Note*    

1. As this shortcut is for all applications. Atleast one application should be running for keyboard shortcut to take effect. May be Finder. So if you just login, the short cut may not work straightaway. Start atleast one app then you are ready to go.

2. Also if custome profile is created for terminal, make sure to make it startup (First Tab)

No comments: