Terminal tabsPro

Brink Terminal Helper

Terminal tabs need Brink Terminal Helper, a small free app you download from this site. Apple doesn’t let App Store apps run shells outside their sandbox, and a shell inside it couldn’t run your Homebrew tools or anything you build. So Brink draws the terminal, and the helper runs the shell. Everything else in Brink works without it.

1. Download Brink Terminal Helper and unzip it (Safari may do that for you).
2. Move it to your Applications folder.
3. Open it once. No window appears: it sets itself up to run in the background, and quits. If macOS asks, turn on Brink Terminal Helper in System Settings › General › Login Items, under Allow in the Background.

From then on, Brink starts the helper whenever a terminal tab needs it. The helper keeps itself up to date: it checks this site for a new version (at most once a day) and installs it when no terminal is using it, without asking.

Until the helper is ready, a terminal tab says what’s wrong:

• Not installed: click Get Brink Terminal Helper…, install it as above, then Try Again.
• Installed, but Brink can’t reach it: open the helper from Applications to finish setting it up (allow it in Login Items if asked), then Try Again.
• Brink Terminal Helper needs updating: download the new version from this site.
• Brink needs updating: update Brink in the App Store.

Open a terminal

Choose New Terminal in the “+” menu (T on the New Tab page). You get your own login shell, as in Terminal, starting in the folder set in Settings. You can have as many terminal tabs as you like.

• The tab’s title is the window title your shell sets, or else the folder’s name.
• The status line shows the folder, and what’s running when it’s more than the shell.
• Full-screen programs (vim, less), line editing and job control all work.

Keys

• While the terminal has the keyboard, the shell gets Escape, Tab, and keys with ⌃ and ⌥.
• Brink keeps its ⌘ shortcuts (⌘T, ⌘W, ⌘1–⌘9, ⌥⌘ arrows and the rest) and ⌃Tab.
• ⌘C copies the selection, ⌘V pastes (as typing), and ⌘A selects everything.
• To use ⌥ as the shell’s Meta key (for ⌥B, ⌥F and the like), turn on Use Option as Meta key in Settings. Off, ⌥ types special characters, as in Terminal.

Closing, quitting and New Shell

• Shells keep running while the panel is hidden, while their tab isn’t showing, and in other workspaces.
• Closing a terminal tab ends its shell. If something is running in it, Brink asks first. Quitting Brink asks once, for all of them.
• When a shell exits, its tab stays, with New Shell (or press Return) to start another.
• Shells don’t survive quitting Brink: after a relaunch, each terminal tab starts a new shell. With Start in › Last Location, it starts in the folder that tab was last in.

Settings

In Settings › Terminal:

• Start in: Home (the default), Last Location (where the terminal you used last was; a tab reopened after a relaunch starts where it was), or Absolute: a folder you pick with Choose… or type (~ is fine). A folder that’s gone falls back to Home.
• Use Option as Meta key: off at first.
• Font: System (SF Mono), or any monospaced font you have.
• Same size as the editor (on at first) makes ⌘= and ⌘- change the terminal too. Turn it off to give the terminal its own Size.

The terminal’s colors follow Brink’s style and appearance (Settings › Appearance). Brink keeps text readable against its background, so a program that picks colors for a dark terminal still reads in a light one.

Remove the helper

1. In System Settings › General › Login Items, under Allow in the Background, turn off Brink Terminal Helper.
2. Drag Brink Terminal Helper from Applications to the Trash.

Terminal tabs will then say the helper is missing; nothing else changes.