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Terminal Hotkeys

Laurence MorganAbout 4 min

Terminal Hotkeys

A list of all the terminal hotkeys and their uses

Command Prompt

Autocomplete

Pressing tab provides autocompletion suggestions. Suggestions can come in one of two formats:

  1. a gridded view where the hint text (the, typically blue, text under the prompt) provides the description
  2. a list view where the description is printed alongside the completion suggestion.

While the autocompletion suggestions are open, the following keys are assigned roles:

  • arrow keys (left, right, up, down): highlight different suggestions

  • tab: highlight the next suggestion

  • shift+tab: highlight the previous suggestion

  • enter / return: this selects the highlighted autocompletion

  • esc: closes the suggestions without selecting one

  • ctrl+f: fuzzy find in the suggestions

  • f1: enable / disable preview box. This will hide your terminal output while enabled. The preview box supports additional key bindings (see below)

Fuzzy Find Autocomplete

Pressing ctrl+f either from the prompt, or while the autocomplete suggestions are open, will open up the fuzzy find dialog to search through available suggestions. This can also be used to quickly jump to specific sub-directories.

Your typed search terms will appear in the hint text.

By default the fuzzy finder will look for any item that includes all of the search words. However the search behavior can be changed if the first search term is any of the following:

  • or: show results that match any of the search terms. eg or .md .txt will match both markdown and txt files (when finding files in completion suggestions).

  • !: only show suggestions that do not match any of the search terms. eg ! .md .txt will match all files except markdown and txt files (when finding files in completion suggestions).

  • g: show only results that match a shell glob. eg *.txt. This mode is automatically assumed if you include an abstricts in your search term.

  • rx: use a regexp pattern matcher instead of any fuzzy search. Expressions will be case insensitive and non-greedy by default.

Aside from globbing matches, searching in fuzzy finder is not case sensitive.

While the fuzzy finder is open, the following keys are assigned roles:

  • arrow keys (left, right, up, down): highlight different suggestions

  • tab: highlight the next suggestion

  • shift+tab: highlight the previous suggestion

  • enter / return: this selects the highlighted autocompletion

  • esc: cancel search

  • f1: enable / disable preview box. This will hide your terminal output while enabled. The preview box supports additional key bindings (see below)

Preview Box

The preview box is a way of quickly examining the contents of a function, man page, text file or even image, based on what autocomplete suggestion is highlighted.

While the preview box is open, the rest of your terminal output will be hidden. However once you close it, that output will reappear.

While the preview box is open, the following keys are assigned roles:

  • f1: closes the preview box

  • page up scroll up the contents of the preview box, one page at a time

  • ctrl+arrow up scroll up the contents of the preview box, one page at a time (IBM keyboard layouts)

  • option+arrow up scroll up the contents of the preview box, one page at a time (Apple keyboard layouts)

  • page down scroll down the contents of the preview box, one page at a time

  • ctrl+arrow down scroll down the contents of the preview box, one page at a time (IBM keyboard layouts)

  • option+arrow down scroll down the contents of the preview box, one page at a time (Apple keyboard layouts)

Search Shell History

This displays up your timestamped shell history as an autocomplete list with fuzzy find activated. Using ctrl+r you can rapidly rerun previous command lines.

From here, the usual autocomplete / fuzzy find hotkeys apply. Such as pressing esc to cancel history completion.

If the prompt line is not empty, then the current line is included in the history search.

Line Editing

These are the various hotkeys and editing modes available in Murex's interactive command prompt.

  • Arrow keys, left and right: move the cursor forwards or backwards in line

  • Arrow keys, up and down: If the command line spans multiple lines on the screen then this will jump up or down to the next/previous line. When at the top or bottom line, the up or down keys will search through your history of past command lines

  • alt+b: jump backwards a word at a time (Emacs compatibility)

  • ctrl+left: jump backwards a word at a time (IBM keyboard layouts)

  • option+left: jump backwards a word at a time (Apple keyboard layouts)

  • alt+f: jump forwards a word at a time (Emacs compatibility)

  • ctrl+right: jump forwards a word at a time (IBM keyboard layouts)

  • option+right: jump forwards a word at a time (Apple keyboard layouts)

  • ctrl+a: jump to beginning of line

  • home: jump to beginning of line

  • ctrl+e: jump to end of line

  • end: jump to end of line

General Hotkeys

  • ctrl+k: clears line after cursor
  • ctrl+u: clears the whole line

Vim Keys

Pressing esc while no autocomplete suggestions are shown will switch the line editor into vim keys mode.

Press i to return to normal editing mode.

Supported Keys

  • a: insert after current character
  • A: insert at end of line
  • b: jump to beginning of word
  • B: jump to previous whitespace
  • d: delete mode
  • D: delete characters
  • e: jump to end of word
  • E: jump to next whitespace
  • h: previous character (like left)
  • i: insert mode
  • I: insert at beginning of line
  • l: next character (like right)
  • p: paste after
  • P: paste before
  • r: replace character (replace once)
  • R: replace many characters
  • u: undo
  • v: visual editor (opens line in $EDITOR)
  • w: jump to end of word
  • W: jump to next whitespace
  • x: delete character
  • y: yank (copy line)
  • Y: same as y
  • [: jump to previous brace
  • ]: jump to next brace
  • $: jump to end of line
  • %: jump to either end of matching bracket
  • 0 to 9: repeat action n times. eg 5x would delete (x) five (5) characters

Full Screen Editing via $EDITOR

When in "vim keys" mode, press v to bring up the visual editor. The editor will be whichever command is stored in the $EDITOR environmental variable.

Recalling Previous Words

  • shift+f1 recalls the first word
  • shift+f2 recalls the second word
  • ...
  • shift+f12 recalls the twelfth word

In the following example, code inside square brackets represent key presses rather than text:

» echo two three four five six seven eight nine
two three four five six seven eight nine
» [shift+f1]echo [shift+f5]five

Job Control

While processes are running, the following keys are assigned roles:

  • ctrl+c: kill foreground process. Pressing this will send a kill (SIGINT) request to the foreground process

  • ctrl+\: kill all running processes in current shell session, including any background processes too. This hotkey is a effectively an emergency kill switch to bring you back to the command prompt should ctrl+c prove ineffective. Use this sparingly because it doesn't allow processes to end gracefully

  • ctrl+z: suspend foreground process. This will take you back to the prompt and from there you can then use job control to resume execution in either the foreground or background. (read more)

Miscellaneous

Cancel Prompt

Pressing ctrl+c while on the prompt will clear the prompt. This is similar to ctrl+u.

End Of File

Pressing ctrl+d on an empty prompt will send EOF (end of file). This will exit that running shell session.

Alternative Cancel Key

ctrl+g performs the same action as esc at all states of the interactive shell.

Clear Screen

Pressing ctrl+l will clear the screen.

See Also

Last update:
Contributors: Olivier Refalo