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Terminal Hotkeys

A list of all the terminal hotkeys and their uses

Command Prompt
Job Control
Miscellaneous

Command Prompt

Autocomplete

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

a gridded view where the hint text (the, typically blue, text under the prompt) provides the description
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: show / hide autocomplete preview box. This will hide your terminal output while enabled. The preview box supports additional key bindings (see below)
f9: show the command line preview box. This will output the contents of your command pipeline (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 .html .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 ! .html .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: show / hide preview box. This will hide your terminal output while enabled. The preview box supports additional key bindings (see below)
f9: show the command line preview box. This will output the contents of your command pipeline (see below)

Autocomplete Preview

The autocomplete preview 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. (read more)

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 or enter: closes the preview box
f9 switches to command line preview
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)
home scroll up to start of previous section or start of document
end scroll down to start of next section or end of document

Command Line Preview

The command line preview enables you to view the output of a command pipeline interactively while you type it. (read more)

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 or enter: closes the preview box
f9 re-runs the command line and thus updates the contents in the preview frame
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)
home scroll up to the previous section
end scroll down to the next section

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, or the command line is only one line long, the up or down keys will search through your history of past command lines that are similar to your current command line.
- If your command line is empty, then the up or down keys will search through every command line in your history.
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
ctrl+z: while readline is open will undo the previous key strokes

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

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.

EDITOR

Sometimes you might want to type your command line in a different editor. You can do via via esc followed by v.

You will need to have an environmental variable named $EDITOR set to the file name and path of your preferred editor, otherwise Murex will default to vi.

(this feature is not currently available on Windows)

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