Terminal shortcuts

As a user of the Haiku operating system, you might use the Terminal on a regular basis.

However do you know all the existing shortcuts and features of the Terminal ?

Let's have a review on some of them.

The Terminal is a central application under Haiku.

It let you navigate inside the system directory structure and execute any application from the command line :

One of the first shortcut I would like to talk is "Opt+T" :

It will create a new tab inside the Terminal :

In this example, we have a first tab in the "/system/apps" folder and a second one in the "/var/log" folder.

If you need to navigate between tabs quickly, just type "Opt+Left Arrow" or "Opt+Right Arrow" :

And once you don't need anymore a tab, right click on it and select the "Close tab" pop-up menu :

Tabs are a handy way when you need to be in several directories at the same time.

As the navigation between tabs is done via simple shortcuts ("Opt+Left Arrow" or "Opt+Right Arrow"), having a single Terminal with multiple tabs is maybe better than many Terminals without any tab.

In case you need to clear your Terminal, there's a shortcut named "Clear all" and accessible via "Opt+L" :

Please note that "Opt+L" is not the same as the clear command.

In case of a clear command, the history of the display is kept and you can navigate backward / forward in it.

In case of "Clear all", you don't have anymore the history of the display, so it's not really the same usage.

Use "Opt+L" only when you want to erase your output history.

Now suppose you have done a "cat" on your syslog file as per below.

Then you can find for a word in the history of the output (from the syslog) by hitting "Opt+F" :

Once the word has been found, you can hit "Opt+G" to continue the search forward, or "Shift+Opt+G" to search backward :

The below is not a shortcut, however it let you decide how the title of the tabs or the title of the window is created.

In the Terminal settings, you can change the window title as per the formalism proposed below :

Let see things in big.

When you need to have the Terminal in full screen size, hit "Opt+Return":

You will then appreciate the output of the Terminal :)

When you need to be back to original size, type "Opt+Return" again.

I hope these shortcuts will be useful in you regular usage of the Terminal !