Note that this guide assumes you're using the bash shell. This guide will address a few Terminal setup questions:

• How do I get the backspace and forward delete keys to work correctly?
• How do I get UTF–8 input to work correctly?
• How do I get UTF–8 input to, you know, work correctly?
• How do I get UTF–8 input to work correctly in irssi running under screen over a ssh connection?
• How do I modify the default ANSI colors?

Read on for the answers to those questions...

How do I get the backspace and forward delete keys to work correctly?

• In the Keyboard section of the Terminal Inspector (Command-I in Terminal):
  • Turn on the Delete key sends backspace option.
  • Map the forward delete key to the following string: \033[3~
• Add the following line to your .profile: stty erase ^H. Since ^H is a non–printable control character, the easiest way to do this is to execute the following command: echo -e "stty erase ^H" >> ~/.profile. Type the ^H by pressing Control–V and Control–H.
• Add the following line to your .inputrc: "\e[3~": delete-char
• Apply changes by doing a source ~/.profile and a source ~/.inputrc.

How do I get UTF–8 input to work correctly?

• In the Terminal Inspector:
  • In the Emulation section, turn off the Escape non-ASCII characters option.
  • In the Display section, choose Unicode (UTF-8) as the Character Set Encoding.
• Add the following line to your .profile: export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
• Add the following lines to your .inputrc:

  set meta-flag on
  set input-meta on
  set output-meta on
  set convert-meta off

• Apply changes by doing a source ~/.profile and a source ~/.inputrc.

How do I get UTF–8 input to, you know, work correctly?

There's an odd bug in the version of bash included with Mac OS X 10.4 that manifests itself as the LC_CTYPE enviroment variable not being set properly by export directives in .profile files. The workaround involves using the little–known environment.plist file. Thanks to Allan Odgaard for the tip!

• Add a LC_CTYPE key with the value en_US.UTF-8 to the root dictionary of the ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist file. Assuming that you don't have that file, the easiest way to do this is to execute the following command:

  echo "{ LC_CTYPE = \"en_US.UTF-8\"; }" > ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist

  You could also use Property List Editor.app.
• Apply changes by logging out and back in.

How do I get UTF–8 input to work correctly in irssi running under screen over a ssh connection?

You're a tricky one, aren't you?

• Copy the relevant parts of your .profile and .inputrc to the remote host.
• Start screen with the -U option.
• In irssi 0.8.9 and older, set term_type to utf-8. In newer versions, set term_charset to utf-8.

After detaching, remember to reattach also using the -U option. This can be a bit tough if you're as used to typing screen -r as I am, so I suggest creating an alias. sru works well.

How do I modify the default ANSI colors?

Use Mike Solomon's TerminalColors utility.

An always up–to–date version of this guide can be found here: Setting up the Mac OS X 10.4 Terminal.app