As primarily a unix developer who prefers running Windows and MacOS on the desktop, I’ve relied on powerful terminal clients for years to get my job done. On Windows, that client has always been SecureCRT. Ever since the day I installed it, it has been the most powerful, usable, and well-supported terminal client I have used on any platform.

Moving to Terminal in MacOS X was hard. Only recently have I dug into the nuts and bolts of Terminal configuration, including .term and .command files, to do things like ‘open 5 connections to 5 different servers and login’, which is something anyone who manages server farms needs to do frequently. In SecureCRT, there is no editing configuration files to do this – the interface is designed to make all of this very easily accessible and configurable.

Probably the worst thing about Terminal is that it is good enough that there doesn’t seem to be much interest in commercial-grade third-party remote terminal development for MacOS.

So, when I did switch to Mac, it wasn’t long before I begged VanDyke to port to MacOS via their support email – which is probably the most reliable, informed, and expedient support service of any software I have ever owned.

I didn’t know the status of any port until today, when I noticed it had already been launched into beta. It looks and works just like the Windows version, which is fine with me. In just minutes I had configurations for all my servers up and running which took me an afternoon in Terminal – and it works better to boot.

One thing I did notice as missing was a vt100 font which has always been included in the Windows version. It is my favorite terminal font, but doesn’t seem to be included in the MacOS version. Besides the default font that used to ship with Konsole (Linux), it is the only terminal font I like using.

There is no question in my mind that it will be a huge boost to my productivity under MacOS – if you ssh alot I recommend trying it out.