Enhancing the user experience with tcsh

[Miroslav Lachman]

Eitan Adler wrote:
> Picking a random person to reply to.
>
> There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread, but can we please
> remember a few things:
>
> - Users can always add their own ~/.cshrc
> - Many users will get annoyed by what is someone else's amazing setup

The main problem of this is: novice user don't know how to enable some 
"advanced" settings for default FreeBSD shell (csh / tcsh) or even don't 
know they exist. But all skilled persons are able to disable "annoing" 
new settings in few seconds.

I think that default FreeBSD install should be more friendly to new 
users. That's why I am propossing better support of command completion 
"out of the box".
(I will still use my own set of changes in rc files which I am deploying 
in a first step on all our machines)

[...]
> For the record this is the current version of the patch I'd like to
> commit: Note that it slightly changed from the original (I removed the
> duplicate prompt setup and reorganized where the edits are made to
> make the diff look nicer).
>
> commit 3ea4ea3a59d14cb060244618dd89d7dd0170bee1
> diff --git a/etc/root/dot.cshrc b/etc/root/dot.cshrc
> --- a/etc/root/dot.cshrc
> +++ b/etc/root/dot.cshrc
> @@ -7,9 +7,10 @@
>
>   alias h		history 25
>   alias j		jobs -l
> -alias la	ls -a
> +alias la	ls -aF
>   alias lf	ls -FA
> -alias ll	ls -lA
> +alias ll	ls -lAF
> +alias ls	ls -F
>
>   # A righteous umask
>   umask 22
> @@ -17,15 +18,19 @@ umask 22
>   set path = (/sbin /bin /usr/sbin /usr/bin /usr/games /usr/local/sbin
> /usr/local/bin $HOME/bin)
>
>   setenv	EDITOR	vi
> -setenv	PAGER	more
> +setenv	PAGER	less
>   setenv	BLOCKSIZE	K
>
>   if ($?prompt) then
>   	# An interactive shell -- set some stuff up
> -	set prompt = "`/bin/hostname -s`# "
> +	set prompt = "[%n@%m]%c04%# "
> +	set promptchars = "%#"
>   	set filec
> -	set history = 100
> -	set savehist = 100
> +	set history = 10000
> +	set savehist = 10000
> +	set autolist
> +	# Use history to aid expansion
> +	set autoexpand
>   	set mail = (/var/mail/$USER)
>   	if ( $?tcsh ) then
>   		bindkey "^W" backward-delete-word

I am fine with this change. It is better than nothing. :)

Miroslav Lachman