Here's a prompt formatting tip for tcsh: Several tips on this site have helped this glistening wet Unix newbie customize my prompt with command history, time, and directory info, as well as colors. However, as the filepath expands when I'm navigating the tree, any long commands I type at the prompt sometimes get wrapped to another line. I wondered if it were possible to have the "%" symbol appear at the beginning of a new line at all times, so out of idle curiosity one day I put a carriage return ("\n") in my prompt, and to my vast surprise, it worked perfectly. I inserted a carriage return at the beginning of the prompt string as well, so it stands alone on a line by itself, as a sort of informational header, while the percent symbol and cursor appear at the beginning of the next line.
Read the rest of the article for the prompt string, as well as a brief tutorial on ANSI codes and their use in the prompt command...
My Terminal window is set to black with 40% transparency, and I find that Courier Bold Oblique 14 pt. set to cyan is the most legible font for me. My prompt is yellow and white:
set prompt = "\n%{\033[1;93m%}>>>%{\033[0;93m%}[%{\033[0;37m%}\\!\!%{\033[0;93m%}]
[%{\033[0;37m%}%D%w%y%{\033[1;93m%}%P %{\033[0;37m%}EST%{\033[0;93m%}][%{\033[0;37m%}%n
%{\033[0;93m%}@%{\033[0;37m%}%m%{\033[0;93m%}][%{\033[0;93m%}%c03]\n\n%#%{\033[0m%} "[Author's Note: this is all a single line. There are spaces surrounding the "=" sign, and a single space before the closing double quotation mark. Put in ~/.tcshrc or ~/Library/init/tcsh/environment.mine.]
%{\033[n;n;nm%}where n is one of the codes from the list below:
%{\033[0;1;5;44;93m%}%nwould reset your user name (%n) to default (0), then set it to bold (1), flashing (5), yellow (93) on a blue background (44).
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20020517085243183