FASD is a shell script that follows in the concept and footsteps of Autojump and Z. It extends the functionality of both of those systems to better differentiate between files and directories. FASD also allows for tacking on different commands to the beginning of a fasd reference such as using vim in an alias, ie: alias v='fasd -e vim'. This VIM alias calls up the most active file matching that pattern and opens it in Vim. Or a simple z searchterm will find the most often and recently used folder and ‘cd’ into it! This is amazing for nested folders. It’s like Vim’s Ctrl-P or Ctrl-T but on the commandline and with more flexibility.

It’s magic and I’ll post back if I keep having good success. Try it out with a brew install fasd or check the install instructions on their github page for more options - FASD.

Update: Still having very good success.  Moving from ~/ to deeply nested folders is a breeze with ‘z SOMEPARTOFPATH’ and likewise using vim to edit a deeply nested file with ‘v SOMEPARTOFNAME’.  It’s nothing short of magical after 2 months of use.

Update Jan 2013: Can’t imagine living in the shell without FASD. This is now included in my environmental setup script.