How do I restore Terminal's color text?

[okie2004]

I recently switched to a 12" PB running 10.3.5 with 768Mb of RAM. Most recently I noticed that my Terminal.app does not show color text for ls or syntax highlighting for vim, as it did "out of the box".

I have followed some hints and threads that talk about setting up aliases for li and vim to enable color highlighting, however, this was not the original setup which is what I am trying to obtain once again. The following are some bits of information that might be of some help.

* I am using the default bash shell
* My term variable is set to xterm-color
* I use the following .bash_profile

#source .bashrc if it's there
if [-f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi

#environment aliases
alias start_tomcat="$CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh"
alias stop_tomcat="$CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh"

#environment variable
export CATALINA_HOME=/usr/local/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.28
export ANT_HOME=/usr/local/apache-ant-1.6.2
export JAVA_HOME=/usr

#set path to include java development
export PATH=$PATH :$CATALINA_HOME/bin:$ANT_HOME/bin
​

* I do not have a ~/.bashrc file
* I deleted the preferences file ("~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist") and restarted the application. I was able to reset the window settings but still not color text for ls or vim

I knew about using "ls -G" to enable color for directory listing and I could even set it as an alias in my .bash_profile file but I am trying to figure out what changed from the setup I had when I got the powerbook.

I am assuming that the original installation defines an alias for "ls" as "ls -G" and another one to enable color syntax for vim, however I would like to know where these are created on a default installation. For example, in a Fedora installation, a file /etc/profile.d/colorls.sh creates the appropriate alias for color syntax, but aside from a user's .bashrc or .bash_profile, how does Panther allow for this?

Thank you for any you advice or suggestions you might have available.

 

[musicpyrite]

ummm.... you know you can change all that by selecting Terminal>Window Settings... don't you?

 

[okie2004]

ummm.... you know you can change all that by selecting Terminal>Window Settings... don't you?

musicpyrite,

thanks for your reply, however I am not sure that I can change what I am looking for from the window settings -- unless I am not looking at the right place. Under window settings, I can change the background and the "normal and bold text". But it does not give me the option to select a color for, say, directories.

If you run "ls -G" is the behavior that was enabled for a simple "ls" when I first got the pb. Also, the sytax highlighting for vim is not addressed by the window settings. I thought it could be related somehow and that is why I deleted my preferences file to being with. That set my window settings back to their default values but I still don't have syntax highlighting.

If you execute a simple "ls" on your terminal, do you see directories in a different color than a normal file? If not, execute ls -G to see if that gives you a different listing.

 

[musicpyrite]

ohhh, ok. I was a little confused by your question, I've never heard of doing that before. I'll keep an eye on this thread, this is something I'll want to learn.

 

[jaseone]

Just been looking into this as the lack of syntax highlighting has been annoying me since switching to OSX and am part wayto a solution...

It seems Terminal isn't respecting the declare terminal type ($TERM) as: xterm-color for some reason, manually doing:

export TERM=xterm-color

Fixes this and then a :syntax on in vi will then work, which you can also place in your .vimrc for it to be permanent.

Okay well I think I have got a complete solution add the following lines to your ~/.profile (or create one if you don't have one):

export TERM=xterm-color
alias ls="ls -G"

then login again and all should be sweet.

Not sure why this would work by default and then not for you though...

Cheers,
Jason

 

[okie2004]

Okay well I think I have got a complete solution add the following lines to your ~/.profile (or create one if you don't have one):

Jason,

That is exactly what I have as well while I try to figure out what happen. I am using .bash_profile instead of .profile for the ls -G alias. For vim, since I don't use it as often, I just use :syntax on once I am in the editor.

Can anyone else confirm if syntax highlighting for ls and vim is ther on a default installation?