Infrequently Noted

Alex Russell on browsers, standards, and the process of progress.

Comments for Notes To A Future Self: Getting Productive On WinXP


I've found that the only cure for windows blues is to make absolutely everything I would ever want accessible in my path. From there, everything is windows key - r away. Vim and cygputty in particular!

I do like cygputty but I find theres some things that dont work quite right in it.

by rektide at
Use the cygwin stand alone rxvt client for your shell work. It gives you the equivalent of a nice xterm for your shell without needing any kind of other X windows (cygwin-X or otherwise) installed. You'll have to specifically choose it in the cygwin installer but its just one exe basically.
by Steve McCoole at
Thanks everyone!

Console2 really does rock, and combined with the Consolas font (which you can get by installing this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en) it works very well. Almost doesn't make me miss Terminal.app.

Regards

by alex at
2 things windows/XP gives you cant get elsewhere: TortoiseSVN (svn gui), and BeyondCompare (visual folder/ftp/file diff tool). I bought XP and keep a vm open just for these.

Also, shift+f10 gives you a keyboard "right-click" which makes the file explorer bearable, powerful even.

by Sam at
You could try UnxUtils from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ (port of popular *nix utils like ls, grep, wget, etc) plus Console 2 from http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/ (can be bringed up by shortcut key, tabbed, provide to run different shells including zsh, resizable, etc)

Maybe this bundle could be enough for you and could replace Cygwin. At least it does for me ;)

by Alexander Chernyakevich at
If you like SharpKeys, have a look at AutoHotkey, with which you can basically everything you'd like for mapping and simulation mouse and key input. http://autohotkey.com