Drop down terminal with iTerm2

I’m a recent convert to using the Terminal. I use it all day, every day. From pushing changes in Git, to creating files and directories, to downloading sites using wget, Terminal has worked its way into my workflow.

I recently found a great tool called iTerm2. It allows you to assign a hotkey which then drops a Terminal window down, as shown below. It allows me to quickly commit and push changes and get straight back to work.

iTerm2 visor view

It’s easy to setup, just follow these steps:

  1. Download and install iTerm2.
  2. Open Preferences and click on the ‘Profiles’ tab.
  3. Create a new profile, give it a name and set it as default.
  4. Click on ‘Window’.
  5. Slide the transparency slider to the right.
  6. Set Rows to ‘25’.
  7. Style should be set to ‘Top of Screen’.
  8. Finally you just need to set a hotkey – click on the ‘Keys’ tab, select the ‘Show/hide hotkey’ tickbox and enter a hotkey.
  9. Restart iTerm for the changes to take effect and you’re done.

My settings are below for reference:

iTerm2 settings