Unfortunately, the Terminal.app comes with OS 10.4 doesn’t have the tab functionality. Most of the Mac users who like to work on several instances of shell without cluttering the desktop use iTerm. However, there is a nother alternative to this called screen. screen is a powerful shell command which lets you open multiple instances of shell in a single window. You can use default keyboard shortcuts to navigate between different instances or you can even define your own.

To make use of the screen command you should first create a configuration file and save it in user directory. Here’s how.

Screen also lets you issue shell commands when executing screen. The standard syntax you should add to the config file looks like,

eg.

As mentioned previously, each keyboard command consists of a C-a followed by one other character. For your convenience, all commands that are bound to lower-case letters are also bound to their control character counterparts (with the exception of C-a a; see below). Thus, both C-a c and C-a C-c can be used to create a window.

The following table shows the default key bindings:

C-a ‘
C-a “
(select)
Prompt for a window identifier and switch. See section Selecting a Window.

C-a 0…9
(select 0…select 9)
Switch to window number 0…9. See section Selecting a Window.

C-a C-a
(other)
Toggle to the window displayed previously. See section Selecting a Window.

C-a a
(meta)
Send the command character (C-a) to window. See escape command. See section Command Character.

C-a A
(title)
Allow the user to enter a title for the current window. See section Naming Windows (Titles).

C-a b
itemx C-a C-b (break)
Send a break to the tty. See section Break.

C-a B
(pow_break)
Close and reopen the tty-line. See section Break.

C-a c
C-a C-c
(screen)
Create a new window with a shell and switch to that window. See section Screen Command.

C-a C
(clear)
Clear the screen. See section Clear.

C-a d
C-a C-d
(detach)
Detach screen from this terminal. See section Detach.

C-a D D
(pow_detach)
Detach and logout. See section Power Detach.

C-a f
C-a C-f
(flow)
Cycle flow among `on’, `off’ or `auto’. See section Flow.

C-a C-g
(vbell)
Toggle visual bell mode. See section Bell.

C-a h
(hardcopy)
Write a hardcopy of the current window to the file “hardcopy.n”. See section hardcopy.

C-a H
(log)
Toggle logging of the current window to the file “screenlog.n”. See section log.

C-a i
C-a C-i
(info)
Show info about the current window. See section Info.

C-a k
C-a C-k
(kill)
Destroy the current window. See section Kill.

C-a l
C-a C-l
(redisplay)
Fully refresh the current window. See section Redisplay.

C-a L
(login)
Toggle the current window’s login state. See section Login.

C-a m
C-a C-m
(lastmsg)
Repeat the last message displayed in the message line. See section Display Last Message.

C-a M
(monitor) Toggle monitoring of the current window. See section Monitoring.

C-a SPC
C-a n
C-a C-n
(next)
Switch to the next window. See section Selecting a Window.

C-a N
(number)
Show the number (and title) of the current window. See section Number.

C-a p
C-a C-p
C-a C-h
C-a BackSpace
(prev)
Switch to the previous window (opposite of C-a n). See section Selecting a Window.

C-a q
C-a C-q
(xon)
Send a ^Q (ASCII XON) to the current window. See section XON and XOFF.

C-a r
C-a C-r
(wrap)
Toggle the current window’s line-wrap setting (turn the current window’s automatic margins on or off). See section Wrap.

C-a s
C-a C-s
(xoff)
Send a ^S (ASCII XOFF) to the current window. See section XON and XOFF.

C-a t
C-a C-t
(time)
Show the load average and xref. See section Time.

C-a v
(version)
Display the version and compilation date. See section Version.

C-a C-v
(digraph)
Enter digraph. See section Digraph.

C-a w
C-a C-w
(windows)
Show a list of active windows. See section Windows.

C-a W
(width)
Toggle between 80 and 132 columns. See section Window Size.

C-a x
C-a C-x
(lockscreen)
Lock your terminal. See section Lock.

C-a z
C-a C-z
(suspend)
Suspend screen. See section Suspend.

C-a Z
(reset)
Reset the virtual terminal to its “power-on” values. See section Reset.

C-a .
(dumptermcap)
Write out a `.termcap’ file. See section Write out the window’s termcap entry.

C-a ?
(help)
Show key bindings. See section Help.

C-a C-\
(quit)
Kill all windows and terminate screen. See section Quit.

C-a :
(colon)
Enter a command line. See section Colon.

C-a [
C-a C-[
C-a ESC
(copy)
Enter copy/scrollback mode. See section Copying.

C-a ]
C-a C-]
(paste .)
Write the contents of the paste buffer to the stdin queue of the current window. See section Paste.

C-a {
(history)
Copy and paste a previous (command) line. See section History.

C-a >
(writebuf)
Write the paste buffer out to the screen-exchange file. See section Screen-Exchange.

C-a <
(readbuf)
Read the screen-exchange file into the paste buffer. See section Screen-Exchange.

C-a =
(removebuf)
Delete the screen-exchange file. See section Screen-Exchange.

C-a _
(silence)
Start/stop monitoring the current window for inactivity. See section Silence,

C-a ,
(license)
Show the copyright page.

Have fun!

The shutdown command comes in handy if you want to shutdown or reboot your Mac at a specific time. Here are some of the examples. You should be a super user to use these commands.

Some examples.
Shutdown immediately:

Reboot immediately:

Shutdown at 9 pm:

Shutdown in 5 minutes:

Restart immediately

Shutdown immediately