This title and a photo of a smiling women are very informative, thank you.

For Bash - try blesh, it will enable some of common controls by default, and probably you will be able to manually enable other shortcuts. PSReadLine is calling xclip each time for copy/paste action for clipboard sync, probably it will be possible with Blesh too.

I’m fine, I got what I wanted. Apparently, it isn’t un-feature of Linux, it’s un-feature of ReadLine which is shipped with Bash.

one of many un-features in Linux

What exactly? Shift-selection is already possible with Blesh. I think I’ve seen scripts for synchronizing buffer with clipboard. And everything else is a matter of redefining existing shortcuts.

I’ve heard about Linux being highly customizable and decentralized OS, and suddenly I can’t define my own shortcuts because there is a list of un-features?

I don’t care about Vi and Emacs, I already have my workflow and I’m trying to transfer it to Linux. When I will succeed, then (maybe) I will spend some time to explore other ways of interacting with terminal. Otherwise, it’s not freedom, it’s becoming a victim of OS.

I’ve got what I wanted with wezterm + powershell. I can edit my commands the same way I edit any text anywhere in the system, both in Windows and Linux, and I can copy-paste back and forth between terminal and any other app. This is awesome. This is freedom. This is UX done right.

I will paste below some observations I’ve made.

Possible solutions for Bash

• https://github.com/jirutka/zsh-shift-select - plugin for zsh as pointed out by @stupid_asshole69@hexbear.net and several other sources;
• https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh - ReadLine replacement for Bash (most promising);
• https://github.com/magenta404/natural-selection - plugin for FishShell;
• https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/p0jjno/how_to_use_shift_arrow_keys_to_select_text_in/ - most useful source on this topic.

Blesh

https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh/wiki/Manual-§4-Editing

• Super simple installation.
• Home/End - Jump to start/end as expected. ✅
• Ctrl+Backspace removes left char instead of left word. ❌
• Ctrl+Delete removes next word as it should. ✅
• Shift+arrows - char-wise text selection ✅
• Shift+Ctrl+arrows - word-wise text selection ✅
• Shift+Home/End don’t do anything. ❌
• Backspace/Delete: When smth is selected they delete it. ✅
• Copy/Paste/Cut: ❌
  • It’s Alt+W/Ctrl+Y/Ctrl+W instead of Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V/Ctrl+X.
  • All work with selection as expected.
  • All work with internal buffer instead of system clipboard.
• System clipboard:
  • Can’t copy selection to clipboard, can’t paste clipboard into selection.
  • Ctrl+Shift+C/V work as they do in vanilla bash: copy what is selected with mouse to clipboard, paste from clipboard.
• Ctrl+C prints current command and starts new one like in vanilla bash.

zsh-shift-select

• Stated to have best compatibiliy with Alacritty.
  • Alacritty requires Cargo (440MB).
    • cannot install package alacritty 0.16.1, it requires rustc 1.85.0 or newer, while the currently active rustc version is 1.75.0 Fail. Will use Gnome Terminal instead.
• Needs zsh, super simple installation.
  • Zsh should be default shell, gnome-shell crashed with SIGSEGV.
  • Plugin itself has simple installation, just git clone .zsh file and source it in .zshrc
• Ctrl+arrows - prints CD instead of moving word-wise ❌
• Ctrl+Backspace, Ctrl+Delete - are not deleting left/right word ❌
• Home/End - Jump to start/end as expected. ✅
• Shift+Left/Right - char-wise text selection ✅
• Shift+Ctrl+arrows - word-wise text selection ✅
• Shift+Home/End don’t do anything. ❌
• Shift+Up/Down - Select one line up/down ✅
• Backspace/Delete - When smth is selected - delete it. ✅
• Copy/Paste/Cut: ❌
  • Documented as Alt+W/Ctrl+Y/Ctrl+W instead of Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V/Ctrl+X.
  • Alt+W/Ctrl+Y work as copy/paste.
  • Ctrl+W removes previous word instead of Cut selection.
  • Work with internal buffer instead of system clipboard.
• System clipboard:
  • Ctrl+Shift+C/V work as they do in blesh and vanilla bash.
  • Can’t copy selection to clipboard, can’t paste clipboard into selection.
• Ctrl+C prints current command and starts new one like in vanilla bash.

wezterm + Powershell

PSReadLine starts with EditMode = Emacs by default.

Set-PSReadLineOption -EditMode Windows Fixes Ctrl+arrows, Ctrl+backspace, Shift+Ctrl+arrows.

Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Chord Ctrl+Delete -Function KillWord - Fixes Ctrl+Delete.

Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Chord Ctrl+o -Function AddLine - allows Ctrl+o instead of Shift+Enter to create a new line without trying to execute. Shift+Enter is not possible in Linux.

Reassigning Shift+Home/End in Gnome Terminal from scrolling viewport to something else is a rabbit hole, so I switched to wezterm, which fixed Shift+Home/End, and apparently also fixed a bug of Shift+arrows printing D;D;D; instead of selecting. But broke Shift+Ctrl+arrows. But you can fix it back by disabling this assignment in lua config.

Ctrl+C/V/X work fine, but without system clipboard synchronization. To fix it, install xclip. If it makes terminal freeze on Ctrl+C/X, update PSReadLine module.

• Ctrl+arrows ✅
• Ctrl+Backspace, Ctrl+Delete ✅
• Home/End ✅
• Shift+Left/Right ✅
• Shift+Ctrl+arrows ✅
• Shift+Home/End ✅
• Shift+Up/Down ❌
• Shift+Enter - Ctrl+o instead ✅
• Ctrl+C,Ctrl+V,Ctrl+X - Flawless ✅

Windows + conhost + Powershell Core

PSReadLine starts with EditMode = Windows by default.

• Ctrl+arrows ✅
• Ctrl+Backspace, Ctrl+Delete ✅
• Home/End ✅
• Shift+Left/Right ✅
• Shift+Ctrl+arrows ✅
• Shift+Home/End ✅
• Shift+Up/Down ❌
• Shift+Enter ✅
• Esc - clear current command ✅
• Ctrl+C,Ctrl+V,Ctrl+X - Flawless, all with system clipboard. ✅

It’s nice to see you think of it as of movement towards consistency. I also look at it this way.

But what is it about Ctrl? Text editing is historically the main task of computers, and Ctrl is the main “modifier” key. To me it seems fair it’s dedicated for some text editing shortcuts. Probably they are consistent since 1980’s.

What terminal emulator are you using where ctrl-c copies instead of sending SIGINT when text is selected?

This is what I experienced in conhost.exe (legacy windows console experience, predecessor of Windows Terminal) + Powershell. In windows terminal it works this way too. This is why I suspect it’s related not to terminal itself (conhost.exe/wt.exe/gnome terminal etc), and not to specific shell (bash/powershell), but to an extension for shell (ReadLine,PSReadLine).

As for various types of buffers and clipboards, I always felt like one system-wide clipboard with clipboard history is enough. When I cut something from terminal, quite often I paste it into another app, and not back to terminal.

For more sophisticated text selection

Here it is. What I’m asking for is not sophisticated at all, quite the opposite. I ask for keybindings which work in almost all text editing areas, in all applications, all operating systems. Vi and eMacs are steps in opposite direction. I think I even used a vi-mode in terminal a couple of years ago. I doubt it’s possible to simplify command editing with it.

This is awesome. I believe difference from client-side filtering is that filters will work everywhere you login with your account. Do you happen to know estimated 1.0 release date?

I see it exists on Voyager for iOS