Chapter 3. Using PowerShell

Table of Contents
Basic Usage
Advanced Usage
Command-line options

This section of the documentation deals with using PowerShell. It covers everything from the basic usage of the program to advanced configuration.

Basic Usage

Starting Programs

When you first start PowerShell, it creates a window with a single notebook tab at the top, a menu bar, and a terminal which should be running your default shell. At this point, PowerShell can function exactly like your ex-favorite :-) terminal emulator. While it is perfectly fine to use PowerShell in this way, you are missing out on the main functionality of the program - the ability to run many programs in a single window.

To start a new program, click on the File menu and choose one of the programs listed there (you can change the programs listed here - more on that later.) For example, choose 'Lynx.' A new tab should appear at the top of the window with 'Lynx' in the label, and a new terminal should appear, running Lynx. Try this with a few other programs.

Another way to start new programs is to right-click on the terminal window. A popup menu should appear, which works exactly the same way as the File menu.

To run an arbitrary program, choose "Run..." from the menu. This will bring up a dialog box where you can enter the program you wish to run. Make sure to include the full path. That is, don't type pine, because that won't work. Type /usr/bin/pine.

Now, before you start emailing me asking why I don't have keyboard shortcuts for the programs, I'll explain here. I'm a bit nervous about adding this because I can see how they would conflict with keystrokes for the programs running in the terminal. They could be user-customizeable, but they people would mess things up and I would get tons of email from people asking "How come when I press Control-X to save and exit in pico, Netscape opens?" Rrggg...

Switching Between Programs

There are several ways to switch between programs in PowerShell. The first, and most obvious, is to click on the notebook tab of the terminal you want to switch to. The second, and a little bit less obvious, is to press Control-Tab. This cycles through all the open tabs. The third is to press Control and then the number of the tab you want to switch to (1-9 only, though. Anything after that and you can't use this method.) For example, to switch to the 3rd tab, press Control-3.

Renaming Tabs

Renaming tabs is easy. Either choose "Rename Tab..." from the menu or right-click on the notebook tab. A dialog box will pop up asking you what you want to rename the tab to.