23

Compared to *nix, Terminal.app seems pretty lame. How can I get it to:

  • Send Page-Up/Down to an application, instead of just scrolling the terminal output
  • Mouse around in vim. set mouse=a isn't helping.
  • All of the above while SSH'd into another machine
Improve this question

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
34
  • Open Terminal.app
  • Open the Preferences window (CMD+,)
  • Click the Settings tab
  • Select your current Settings theme, and click on the Keyboard tab
  • Edit (or Add) the entry for Home:
  • Set Action: to send string to shell:
  • Set the string to \001 (or press Ctrl+a)
  • Edit (or Add) the entry for End:
  • Set Action: to send string to shell:
  • Set the string to \005 (or press Ctrl+e)
  • Edit (or Add) the entry for Page Up:
  • Set Action: to send string to shell:
  • Set the string to \033[5~ (copy and paste this in)
  • Edit (or Add) the entry for Page Down
  • Set Action: to send string to shell:
  • Set the string to \033[6~ (copy and paste this in)
  • Close the settings window.

There you go. Terminal should be ready to use the Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys as expected by Windows/Linux users.

SSH into your favorite Linux server, open nano, vi, or emacs and enjoy.

If home or end keys don't work in vim try these:

  • Home: \033[7~
  • End: \033[4~

As for the mouse issue, I'm not sure if Termminal.app supports xterm mouse reporting. Supposedly it needs that to work. iTerm is an alternative terminal program that support mouse reporting. MouseTerm is a hack to add mouse reporting to Terminal.app but I've not tried it and don't know how well it works

You can also install X11.

Once you do one of those three things you should be able to use ssh with set mouse=a.

Improve this answer
4
  • 1
    Awesome answer. I've been wrestling with this for years, and taken to using C-u/d in vim and "/scrollback goto +/-30" in irssi for so long.
    – Nick Retallack
    Jan 27, 2010 at 1:25
  • Thanks! it's a huge problem for alot of users. Glad I could help!
    – Kelbizzle
    Jan 27, 2010 at 1:27
  • This is also super-handy for adding a one-handed pageup/pagedown (on laptops, there is no Fn key on the right, so shift+Fn+arrow is a two-handed operation). I bound option+uparrow to \033[5~ and option+downarrow to \033[6~ for page up/page down, for happy one-handed text scrolling.
    – Ether
    Aug 11, 2012 at 19:11
  • 1
    For me, the codes \033OH for Home and \033OF for End worked better. (at least in less)
    – Lars Nyström
    Dec 5, 2017 at 10:37
6

With regards to Page Up/Down and Home/End, simply hold down the shift key to send those to the application. Otherwise remapping the keys as Kelbizzle described will completely do away with Apple's idea of what's most important to scroll through (i.e. their scrollback).

Improve this answer
4

Within Terminal mc (midnightcomander) works with Fn+Shift+UpKey and Fn+Shift+DownKey

Improve this answer
0
1

Correct key codes:

home key code:

\033[H

end key code:

\033[F

page-up key code:

\033[5~

page-down key code:

\033[6~

Source with screenshots: https://superuser.com/a/33370

Improve this answer
0

In 10.10 Yosemite (not sure about previous versions) you can scroll down using the trackpad or a mouse the same way you would a webpage. Put the mouse over the Terminal window, and scroll using the mouse wheel or two fingers on a touchpad.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .