Using <Ctrl> to stay on the home row in your terminal and vim #terminal #vim #osx #unix

ctrl-to-stay-on-homerow.md

Here are some tricks you can use to be able to stay on the home row (asdfghjkl etc) when you're in a terminal or in vim.

Terminal

• <Ctrl>+l Clear the terminal
• <Ctrl>+a go to beginning of line
• <Ctrl>+e go to end of line
• <Ctrl>+p instead of <Up>, to see previous command
• <Ctrl>+n instead of <Down>, to see next command
• <Ctrl>+k + <Ctrl>+u Cut current command
• <Ctrl>+y Paste command

Terminal + Vim

• <Ctrl>+u to clear the current line
• <Ctrl>+j instead of <Enter>
• <Ctrl>+h instead of <Backspace>
• <Ctrl>+w instead of <Alt>+<Backspace> to erase current word
• <Ctrl>+i instead of <Tab>
• <Ctrl>+ä instead of <Esc> (or <Ctrl>+[ depending on your keyboard layout)

If you are confused by some of this, then take a look at this excellent article

But why is the escape key triggered by the [ character? Why not another character? https://garbagecollected.org/2017/01/31/four-column-ascii/

More goodies here https://superuser.com/a/362115/299642
and here http://teohm.com/blog/shortcuts-to-move-faster-in-bash-command-line/

Bonus: Using Escape

• <Esc> . to repeat last argument of previous command
• <Esc> b to jump backward to previous word
• <Esc> f to jump forward to next word