A couple of months ago I discovered apparix: a set of commands which augment cd with bookmarks. It really is an amazing feeling when you zap between multiple directories far away just with a couple of keystrokes! Apparix provides three commands I use daily: to, bm, and apparix (program suggests aliasing last one to als). Here’s how I use it:

$ pwd
/Users/ruslan
$ apparix
--- portals
--- expansions
--- bookmarks
j dotfiles     /Users/ruslan/.dotfiles
j blog         /Users/ruslan/Projects/ruslanosipov.github.io
$ to blog
$ pwd
/Users/ruslan/Projects/ruslanosipov.github.io
$ cd source/_posts
$ bm posts
added: posts -> /Users/ruslan/Projects/ruslanosipov.github.io/source/_posts
$ to dotfiles
$ pwd
/Users/ruslan/.dotfiles
$ to posts
$ pwd
/Users/ruslan/Projects/ruslanosipov.github.io/source/_posts

The example above is self explanatory: you can see how over the span of a year apparix saves hours of navigating directories you frequent.

Installation

If you don’t like reading manuals, installation might be a confusing. But in reality it’s straightforward, you just need to add some functions or aliases to your shell’s configuration file.

Install apparix using your favorite package manager, and then pipe examples apparix offers into your shell’s rc file.

apparix --shell-examples >> ~/.bashrc

Open your .bashrc (or another corresponding configuration file), and pick the preferred way of using apparix: you’ll see functions for bash and aliases for csh given as examples. Pick whatever works for your shell, source your rc file, and you’re all set!

Happy jumping!