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Document Alacritty's features
2020-07-23 18:32:38 -04:00
# Features
This document gives an overview over Alacritty's features beyond its terminal
emulation capabilities. To get a list with supported control sequences take a
look at [Alacritty's escape sequence support](./escape_support.md).
## Vi Mode
The vi mode allows moving around Alacritty's viewport and scrollback using the
keyboard. It also serves as a jump-off point for other features like search and
opening URLs with the keyboard. By default you can launch it using
<kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>Shift</kbd> <kbd>Space</kbd>.
### Motion
The cursor motions are setup by default to mimic vi, however they are fully
Fix configuration link typo Co-authored-by: Christian Duerr <contact@christianduerr.com>
2023-07-11 20:48:08 -04:00
configurable. If you don't like vi's bindings, take a look at the configuration
Switch to TOML configuration format This switches Alacritty's default configuration format from yaml to toml. While yaml is still supported, it is done by converting it to toml and should be removed entirely in the future. All existing features were persisted based on my testing. Behavior should not change much, though `--option` might have slightly different behavior since the entire line is not interpreted as one line of toml. A new `alacritty migrate` subcommand has been added which allows automatic migration from yaml to toml. This also could be used as a facility to automatically fix configuration file changes in the future. Closes #6592.
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file to change the various movements.
Document Alacritty's features
2020-07-23 18:32:38 -04:00
### Selection
One useful feature of vi mode is the ability to make selections and copy text to
the clipboard. By default you can start a selection using <kbd>v</kbd> and copy
it using <kbd>y</kbd>. All selection modes that are available with the mouse can
be accessed from vi mode, including the semantic (<kbd>Alt</kbd> <kbd>v</kbd>),
line (<kbd>Shift</kbd> <kbd>v</kbd>) and block selection (<kbd>Ctrl</kbd>
<kbd>v</kbd>). You can also toggle between them while the selection is still
active.
## Search
Search allows you to find anything in Alacritty's scrollback buffer. You can
search forward using <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>Shift</kbd> <kbd>f</kbd> and
backward using <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>Shift</kbd> <kbd>b</kbd>.
### Vi Search
In vi mode the search is bound to <kbd>/</kbd> for forward and <kbd>?</kbd> for
backward search. This allows you to move around quickly and help with selecting
content. The `SearchStart` and `SearchEnd` keybinding actions can be bound if
you're looking for a way to jump to the start or the end of a match.
### Normal Search
During normal search you don't have the opportunity to move around freely, but
you can still jump between matches using <kbd>Enter</kbd> and <kbd>Shift</kbd>
<kbd>Enter</kbd>. After leaving search with <kbd>Escape</kbd> your active match
stays selected, allowing you to easily copy it.
Add regex terminal hints This adds support for hints, which allow opening parts of the visual buffer with external programs if they match a certain regex. This is done using a visual overlay triggered on a specified key binding, which then instructs the user which keys they need to press to pass the text to the application. In the future it should be possible to supply some built-in actions for Copy/Pasting the action and using this to launch text when clicking on it with the mouse. But the current implementation should already be useful as-is. Fixes #2792. Fixes #2536.
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## Hints
Terminal hints allow easily interacting with visible text without having to
start vi mode. They consist of a regex that detects these text elements and then
Add copy/paste/select hint actions This adds some built-in actions for handling hint selections without having to spawn external applications. The new actions are `Copy`, `Select` and `Paste`.
2021-04-03 19:52:44 -04:00
either feeds them to an external application or triggers one of Alacritty's
built-in actions.
Add regex terminal hints This adds support for hints, which allow opening parts of the visual buffer with external programs if they match a certain regex. This is done using a visual overlay triggered on a specified key binding, which then instructs the user which keys they need to press to pass the text to the application. In the future it should be possible to supply some built-in actions for Copy/Pasting the action and using this to launch text when clicking on it with the mouse. But the current implementation should already be useful as-is. Fixes #2792. Fixes #2536.
2021-03-01 14:50:39 -05:00
Add vi/mouse hint highlighting support This patch removes the old url highlighting code and replaces it with a new implementation making use of hints as sources for finding matches in the terminal.
2021-04-12 23:24:42 -04:00
Hints can also be triggered using the mouse or vi mode cursor. If a hint is
enabled for mouse interaction and recognized as such, it will be underlined when
the mouse or vi mode cursor is on top of it. Using the left mouse button or
<kbd>Enter</kbd> key in vi mode will then trigger the hint.
Add regex terminal hints This adds support for hints, which allow opening parts of the visual buffer with external programs if they match a certain regex. This is done using a visual overlay triggered on a specified key binding, which then instructs the user which keys they need to press to pass the text to the application. In the future it should be possible to supply some built-in actions for Copy/Pasting the action and using this to launch text when clicking on it with the mouse. But the current implementation should already be useful as-is. Fixes #2792. Fixes #2536.
2021-03-01 14:50:39 -05:00
Hints can be configured in the `hints` and `colors.hints` sections in the
Alacritty configuration file.
Document Alacritty's features
2020-07-23 18:32:38 -04:00
## Selection expansion
After making a selection, you can use the right mouse button to expand it.
Double-clicking will expand the selection semantically, while triple-clicking
will perform line selection. If you hold <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> while expanding the
selection, it will switch to the block selection mode.
## Opening URLs with the mouse
You can open URLs with your mouse by clicking on them. The modifiers required to
be held and program which should open the URL can be setup in the configuration
file. If an application captures your mouse clicks, which is indicated by a
change in mouse cursor shape, you're required to hold <kbd>Shift</kbd> to bypass
that.
Add multi-window support Previously Alacritty would always initialize only a single terminal emulator window feeding into the winit event loop, however some platforms like macOS expect all windows to be spawned by the same process and this "daemon-mode" can also come with the advantage of increased memory efficiency. The event loop has been restructured to handle all window-specific events only by the event processing context with the associated window id. This makes it possible to add new terminal windows at any time using the WindowContext::new function call. Some preliminary tests have shown that for empty terminals, this reduces the cost of additional terminal emulators from ~100M to ~6M. However at this point the robustness of the daemon against issues with individual terminals has not been refined, making the reliability of this system questionable. New windows can be created either by using the new `CreateNewWindow` action, or with the `alacritty msg create-window` subcommand. The subcommand sends a message to an IPC socket which Alacritty listens on, its location can be found in the `ALACRITTY_SOCKET` environment variable. Fixes #607.
2021-10-23 03:16:47 -04:00
## Multi-Window
Alacritty supports running multiple terminal emulators from the same Alacritty
instance. New windows can be created either by using the `CreateNewWindow`
keybinding action, or by executing the `alacritty msg create-window` subcommand.
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