Apr 8, 2012

Mac OS X Lion and iTerm 2 Keybindings

I had to switch from Linux to Mac OS X Lion (10.7) at my work place. After getting used to Linux bash shell, I did not like the Mac terminal at all. I've install iTerm 2 and played with its keybindings and I've got the following useful keyboard shortcuts working.
  • To move cursor word-by-word  backward: Mapped Option + Left Arrow key to "Send Escape Sequence" and b
  • To move cursor word-by-word  forward: Mapped Option + Right Arrow key and "Send Escape Sequence" and f
  • To move cursor to the beginning of the sentence: Mapped Option + Up Arrow key to "Send Hex Code" and 1
  • To move cursor to the end of the sentence: Mapped Option + Down Arrow key to "Send Hex Code" and 5
  • To delete a word-byword ( backward-kill-word ): Mapped Option + BackSpace key to to "Send Hex Code" and 17
The keybindings can be changed from Preferences > Keys (or Preferences > Profiles > Keys). Since the profile level shortcuts were not useful I got rid of most of them from Preferences > Profiles > Keys.

Additionally, these built-in shortcuts will be useful:
  • Ctrl a : Goto the beginning of sentence.
  • Ctrl e : Goto the end of the sentence.
  • Ctrl w : Delete words backward.

These were couple of useful articles helped me to fix this: