Can a command line shell be Mac-like?
June 6th, 2012

No. But this is the closest yet!

The new fish is a POSIX command line shell with delightful, intuitive features like autosuggestions, 256 color syntax highlighting, web based configuration, and lots more. Best of all, these features just work, out of the box. No arcane syntax, no twiddling obscure knobs.

It runs inside your favorite terminal emulator, such as Terminal.app, xterm, or iTerm. You'll feel right at home with its familiar syntax, and its new features will make you instantly more productive, without getting in your way.

Of course, the new fish also has the advanced features you expect from a shell, like customizable prompts, user-defined functions, scripting, programmable completions (that just work, out of the box), etc. There's also a great community and tons of documentation. It's perfect for anyone who uses the command line, but doesn't want to spend all their time learning its idiosyncrasies.

Click Here To Try Out the New Fish Shell ยป

You'll be so glad you did. Seriously, those autosuggestions have ruined me for all other shells.

The new fish is in open beta, but is plenty stable enough for everyday use: I use it exclusively on all of my systems. There's an OS X installer and a Debian/Ubuntu installer, and a source tarball for other Unix-like OSes. The download page also has contact information for your questions and love letters / hate mail.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Siteshwar Vashisht for his great contributions, and of course the original developer Axel for authoring fish in the first pace.

Now, go fish!