Best Unix Tricks?
gcv: 1. Check out z: http://github.com/rupa/z. It's a pretty nice productivity booster for flipping between different directories. It's quite easy to port to zsh, also.2. Learn to use the editor modes on your shell. If you use Emacs mode in zsh, for example, things like transient-mark mode work with all the standard Emacs keybindings, and you can easily copy and paste pieces of your command line. vi mode also supports similar bells and whistles.3. In zsh, if you are typing a command and then realize you need to look up its man page, move your cursor back to the command and hit Esc-h (or Meta-h or Alt-h, depending on your terminal). Once you quit the man viewer, your command line will be restored.4. In zsh, if your command line gets too unwieldy to edit in zle, just hit Esc-e (Meta-e). It'll let you edit the command line in your editor (be sure your EDITOR environment variable is set).5. zsh has an awesome buffer stack feature. Imagine you're typing a long command (call it command A), then realize that you need to run something else first (call it command B). Don't Ctrl-u or delete anything; leave your current command alone, and hit Esc-q. You'll get a fresh prompt. Run B. Once B executes, zsh will restore the command line from A. You can do this as many times as you want.Anyway --- go and read "From Bash to Z Shell, Conquering the Command Line" by Kiddle, Peek, and Stephenson. I've never seen a better book on using shells with maximum efficiency (and I'm still only learning). Just learning to use and extend the autocompletion features of zsh was invaluable to me.