Keybindings in the termial

Default: Emacs-style keybindings

By default, the terminal running bash support the Emacs keybindings, e.g.,

• ctrl-a to move to the start of the input,
• ctrl-e to move to the end of the input,
• alt-b to move back a word,
• alt-f to move forward a word, and so on.

A nice cheat sheet for the default keybindings can be helpful.

vi-style keybindings

However, this default behavior can be changed to vi keybindings, including a command and an insert mode. To get this to work, you need a file named .inputrc in your home directory with the following contents.

set editing-mode vi
set keymap vi-command

The prompt starts in insert mode, so you can type as usual. To switch to command mode, hit ESC. Now many of the vi commands work, e.g.,

• ^ to move to the start of the input,
• $ to move to the end of the input,
• b to move backward a word,
• w to move forward a word,
• \<search-string> to search your history backward, and so on.

The main time savers are of course vi’s movement operators in command mode, e.g., 3f/ would move the cursor to the third slash, starting to count from its current location.

A convenient cheat sheet in PDF format is available.

It takes some time getting used to, but will save you quite some keystrokes at the end of the day.