nushell / nushell/nushell

Control-[left/right] keyboard navigation doesn't work on macOS

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#9,292 3 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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deprecated:platform-specific platform:macos status:needs-triage
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Describe the bug

Per https://www.nushell.sh/blog/2020-01-07-nushell-0_8_0.html#improved-keyboard-navigation-aloso:

We now support moving left by-word using the ctrl+left and ctrl+right keyboard shortcuts.

This does not work for me on macOS Ventura 13.4 using any of:

  • Terminal.app
  • iTerm 3.4.19
  • VS Code terminal

Using ⌘⬅️ or ⌘➡️ does not work either, and neither do a few other alternatives I've tried.

How to reproduce
  1. Open a nu shell on macOS
  2. Type a command with multiple words and press Ctrl-left.
Expected behavior

The cursor moves a word to the left.

Screenshots

No response

Configuration
key value
version 0.80.0
branch
commit_hash
build_os macos-aarch64
build_target aarch64-apple-darwin
rust_version rustc 1.69.0 (84c898d65 2023-04-16) (built from a source tarball)
cargo_version cargo 1.69.0 (6e9a83356 2023-04-12)
build_time 2023-05-16 22:11:13 +00:00
build_rust_channel release
features default, zip
installed_plugins
Additional context

I would actually love to see a shell that has a better understanding of arguments and tokens — in particular, a way to move forward/backward by an argument at a time, as well as a way to delete an argument forward/back. There's a lot of opportunity for real-world command editing ergonomics that other shells seem to have ignored.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

The issue names no source file or test. Start by reproducing Ctrl-left and Ctrl-right on macOS in Terminal.app, iTerm, and the VS Code terminal, then trace the keyboard input handling; done means word-wise cursor movement works in the affected terminals.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
macos, rust, shell
Domain
cli, operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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