Keyboard shortcuts for GNU Readline
For anyone using a Mac, the basic cursor movement commands available in readline and emacs—C-f, C-b, C-a, C-e, C-n, C-p—are also available in virtually any text input in any program, namely web browser inputs, url bars, and textareas, as well as all system UIs.<p>Once you get used to using these shortcuts that means you can compose and <i>edit</i> text anywhere without ever moving your hands.<p>I recently switched to using Linux full time for my job and it KILLS me that these shortcuts aren’t available outside of the terminal. I try to navigate to a search suggestion in Chrome using C-n and accidentally open three new windows. I try to add a sentence at the start of Slack message using C-a and accidentally highlight everything and delete it. I try to move my cursor up to edit a previous line using C-p and end up brining up a print dialogue. It’s breaking the muscle memory of my most basic interactions with the computer, and it sucks.