Can't see why that wouldn't work, except that I don't want to use xterms; I want to use Terminal.

Rob...

In my .profile (under Linux) I have a function getcolours with a case statement that sets up bg, fg and ms for each machine I want to be able to ssh into.

Then, on my home terminal in .profile I have:

for host in $hosts
do
getcolours
eval "function $host {
ssh -A -Y -T -f $host /usr/bin/xterm -sb -sl 1000 -rightbar -ms $ms -fg $fg -bg $bg -ls -u8
}"
done

Now I can simply type xyz to get an xterm back from a host called xyz.may.be, with the right background and foreground colours.

I can't see why this wouldn't work on a mac.