In all GUI text editors, web browsers and IDE’s you can move a cursor:

  • left/right arrows - move by char;
  • ctrl+left/right - move by word;
  • home/end - move to start/end of line.

Add Shift to any of above combination and everything you jumped through now is selected and you can: Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X,Delete to copy/cut/delete selection.

Also, you can Ctrl+Delete and Ctrl+Backspace to delete a next/previous word.

Also, you can Ctrl+Home/End to jump to start of first line or end of last line.

I want this to work when I type in a command in my Terminal.

Is it possible in Linux? It’s a vanilla experience in Windows+Powershell, thanks to default PSReadlLine extension. It works both in conhost.exe and in Windows Terminal, but doesn’t work in WT + cmd.exe, which makes me think it’s PSReadLine which is responsible for this technological perfection.

“But you can’t copy with Ctrl+C, it’s…” - You can. When something is selected It copies selection to clipboard, otherwise it sends SIGINT.

I’m not bound to any distro or terminal application, but right now I don’t see these incredible text editing techniques working even in Ubuntu+Powershell+PSReadLine, to say nothing about the Bash. I’ve tried installing WezTerm, but it doesn’t have text selection either, at least by default. And I’m inclined to think it has nothing to do with terminal emulators at all, since it works in conhost.exe+Powershell.

  • Ferk@lemmy.ml
    0·
    4 days ago

    Is it weird to explain the reason why something is as it is? If you were already aware of it then it shouldn’t be as baffling.

    There are also modern terminals and shells that do things the way you expect in a more convenient way, but maybe you also know this, OP mentioned powershell, he just use that (pwsh) in Linux, and personally I haven’t tried the more GUI-friendly terminals, but I’m sure there are those that support this paired with an appropriate shell. It’s just that this hasn’t been a focus for traditional and slim/lightweight terminals coupled with traditional shells which is typically the popular combination amongst heavy terminal users, many of the slim terminal apps stay away from GUI toolkits that are what normally give consistency in settings to the GUI apps. And because they are slim and try to eliminate non-features, typically they don’t do configuration profiles… specially given that it’s relatively easy in Linux to backup and reuse your configuration across installs. It’s more of a job of the OS or maybe the sysadmin.

    There’s also not a real standardized setup in Linux as a whole. There are environments that default using the Super (Windows) key for all window management, or use TUI terminal apps for most things so they get terminal navigation keys for all their apps. Some people even configure Gtk/Qt to use vim/emacs style for navigation in text boxes because for them it’s the other way around, all their apps use terminal shortcuts because… well… they are terminal apps.

    • Alaknár@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      Is it weird to explain the reason why something is as it is? If you were already aware of it then it shouldn’t be as baffling.

      Imagine this conversation:

      OP: Hi guys, I’m looking for yellow tomatoes, do you know where can I get them?

      You: Well, tomatoes are usually red because of [valid biological reason].

      You see how weird that is?

      There are also modern terminals and shells that do things the way you expect in a more convenient way, but maybe you also know this

      Clearly, neither me nor the OP know this. If that wasn’t the case, I would’ve provided OP with an answer to the question they posted!

      OP mentioned powershell, he just use that (pwsh) in Linux

      PowerShell still runs inside a terminal emulator (e.g. Fish), so it changes nothing in the input/output behaviour.

      personally I haven’t tried the more GUI-friendly terminals

      “GUI-friendly terminals”? What does that mean, in the context of the conversation?

      Why are you talking about GUI?