macosterminal
I want to set the "Homebrew" theme to be the default in Terminal.
I've changed the setting in the preferences: I chose "on startup, open" : "new window with settings" : "Homebrew".
Here is a screenshot:
Terminal uses "Homebrew" only for the first window. Then I do cmd-W to close the window and cmd-N to get a new window. The new window appears with the "Basic" theme! But if I do cmd-Q and restart Terminal then it gives me a "Homebrew" window again. Why don't terminal themes work properly?
It sounds like Lion's resume feature is confusing the cause-effect relationship between settings and application behavior.
The "On Startup, open" should work, assuming that you had no windows open when you closed Terminal.app. Lion's resume feature is enabled for Terminal.app by default, so quitting the application before closing any windows will yield the same windows the Terminal is re-launched.
The simplest fix is this:
In the normal course of events, the resulting window should have the "On Start, open..." settings. If the steps above do not fix the issue, then I recommend deleting your Terminal preferences with a backup so that you can revert if needed.
Disable Resume for Terminal.app
You can also just disable resume for Terminal.app. Run the following command and re-launch Terminal.app twice:
defaults write com.apple.Terminal NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false
I may not be understanding the question fully, since you change the color settings per-tab/window contrary to your question, but here is how to do what I think you want.
Enter a name for your settings.
Make any changes you want to font colors.
Right-click on the first and choose Inspect Tab.
Select your desired Settings pre-set from the list. (The ones you created will be down towards the bottom.)
That should be it. If you want Terminal to always open like this, with these three tabs and their associated color settings:
Next to "On startup, open:" choose the radio button for "Window group:" and select the name of the group you created in step 2.
Best Answer
Go to Terminal → Preferences → Settings → Profiles, select the Homebrew theme, and click the ‘Default’ button. Then quit Terminal and restart to confirm it works.