The OS X terminals, both the built-in Terminal.app and iTerm 2, are better than what I have found in Linux so far.
Both do automatic text wrapping and reflow it on window resize, which is hard to find on Linux terminals. Also, neither relies on the control key for menu item key equivalents. Copy is Command-C, SIGINT is Control-C.
On Linux, Control-C is copy everywhere except in terminal windows; there Control-C is SIGINT and Control-Shift-C is copy. I often type the wrong one, and either fail to copy text, or worse, abort a long-running process by accident.
When you use Linux, do you use key equivalents in the terminal (copy, paste, etc.)? How do you handle the inconsistencies with other apps?
> Both do automatic text wrapping and reflow it on window resize, which is hard to find on Linux terminals. Also, neither relies on the control key for menu item key equivalents. Copy is Command-C, SIGINT is Control-C.
I actually hadn't noticed this as I usually run things inside of screen, but it seems that there are options[1].
> When you use Linux, do you use key equivalents in the terminal (copy, paste, etc.)? How do you handle the inconsistencies with other apps?
I'll give you that one. This bugged me at first (usually doing Ctrl+Shift+C in Chromium, I've never done Ctrl+C in a terminal inadvertently) so I made an extension that calls me an idiot when I Ctrl+Shift+C in Chromium. That cured it fast.
What I like about Linux is that I haven't found something that can't be done - for example, if this bothered you sufficiently, you could remap Super-c to be copy universally - this[2] seems like it would work. The terminal would possibly need its own override.
I've never noticed the lack of text wrapping and reflow until you mentioned it, but you are correct, at least on KDE that I'm using at the moment.
I think the reason I've never consciously noticed this before is because I'm almost always using VIM in the terminal when typing lines of any length. With VIM, line wrap and reflow work just fine in the terminal. I actually had to check that it didn't work with naked terminal commands, and was a bit surprised when it didn't. I suppose I haven't typed many raw terminal commands of the length to wrap, and in the rare case I did, I must have just dealt with it. So it's cool there is a terminal that wraps... that's worth a point or two... but not that a big a deal in my particular case.
For copy-paste I just use the mouse. Works normally on konsole (right-click highlight > select copy, same > select paste). On urxvt I paste by clicking left and right mouse together. Keybindings could be set easily enough in KDE and I believe there is a plugin called "xclip" for urvxt that would do the same. I haven't bothered because what I have seems to work fine and I rarely copy/paste (again, except in VIM which has it's own thing). Admittedly a nice terminal all set up that didn't require customization would be cool. But I take my setup from machine to machine anyway in config files so again...not that big of a deal.
I'm not sure about inconsistencies with other apps. The Control-C thing I'm used to. I don't hit Control-C to copy in the terminal by habit at this point although I could see how that could be an adjustment.
Anyway, cool... thanks. I didn't realize OS X had a very nice terminal. Good to know.
Both do automatic text wrapping and reflow it on window resize, which is hard to find on Linux terminals. Also, neither relies on the control key for menu item key equivalents. Copy is Command-C, SIGINT is Control-C.
On Linux, Control-C is copy everywhere except in terminal windows; there Control-C is SIGINT and Control-Shift-C is copy. I often type the wrong one, and either fail to copy text, or worse, abort a long-running process by accident.
When you use Linux, do you use key equivalents in the terminal (copy, paste, etc.)? How do you handle the inconsistencies with other apps?