cmd-A in interactive shell should only select text in current prompt
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- Racket
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Description
As you can see in the recording below when pressing cmd+a (ctrl+a) in the interactive command prompt all the text in the interactive window gets selected.

Suggestions: it would be convenient if only the text in the currently interactive prompt (only (foo bar 5) would get selected.
Actually the cursor behavior in the interactive window is a bit confusing as you can move th cursor outside the editable line and it's still blinking (suggesting that the text can be edited when in fact it's read only).
Suggestion:
- Limit the cursor movement to the editable prompt
- if the cursor is in the first or last line of the interactive prompt arrow up/down should cycle through previous read commands
- escape key could toggle read-only mode of the interactive window allowing the cursor to move everywhere but disabling the prompt (in read-only cmd+a could select all the text)
- when not in read-only mode clicking anywhere in the interactive window should force the cursor somewhere into the editble region of the prompt (currently when clicking right after the
>in the prompt one can not enter any text)
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First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the interactive command prompt and editable-line/cursor behavior described in the issue, using the linked recording to reproduce cmd/ctrl-A and cursor movement. Review the prompt's handling of selection, clicks, arrow keys, and Escape, then verify that editing is confined to the current prompt while read-only selection still behaves as described.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Domain
- desktop
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100