Shorten Up Terminal Commands

If you're like me, you hate typing long terminal commands to do everyday tasks. This is especially problematic in elementary OS with long application names like scratch-text-editor and pantheon-files. Example:

sudo scratch-text-editor random_file

The easiest way to shorten these names is by adding aliases to your .bashrc file.

From the terminal, you can edit your .bashrc file with the following:

scratch-text-editor ~/.bashrc

Or graphically, this can be done by going to your home folder and hitting [CTL+h] to show your hidden files.

After the .bashrc file is open, you can add aliases to the bottom of the file. I added the following:

# Root access to pantheon-files
alias root="gksudo pantheon-files"

#Shorten scratch name
alias scratch="scratch-text-editor"

Now, when you need root access to your files, simply type 'root' into the terminal and you're set!