I've written many replies on this list explaining to people how to use launchctl to start and stop various services installed by MacPorts. Every time I do, I have to refer back to my notes to remember the exact launchctl command and the exact path to the plist. Admit it: sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.foo.plist is not easy to remember, and it's a lot to type. On my system, I wrote a script "turn" to simplify things for me. I can say things like: turn foo on or turn off bar and it knows where to look for the plist and how to execute the appropriate launchctl command. It's short and easy to remember. It also prints helpful messages if you try to turn something on when it's already on, or off when it's already off. It would be nice to have easier-to-remember commands included with MacPorts, but a script called "turn" hardly seems to fit in with the rest of the project. But what about: sudo port load foo and sudo port unload bar ? That's pretty easy to remember in my opinion. What do you think? This proposed syntax limits us to one launchctl plist per port. However, we already have that limit, so I don't consider it a big problem at this time. P.S: I'm including my "turn" script for others to examine and try out and even use, if they like. But I'm not suggesting that this script be incorporated as-is into MacPorts. I would fully intend for the hypothetical "port load" and "port unload" commands to be properly implemented in Tcl.