Natural Selection

A fish shell plugin that makes selection as natural as a text editor.

For the most part, it is a wrapper for existing input functions with its primary purpose to track/manipulate the selected region.

It also provides functions for integrating with other plugins.

Features

• Ends selection on cursor move
• Replaces selection on input
• Begins selecting only if not already selecting
• Makes selection accessible
• Makes selection useful outside of Vi mode
• Clipboard integration

Requirements

• Fish 4.0.0 or later

Installation

fisher install magenta404/natural-selection

Follow on to usage, as this plugin does not provide key bindings.

Usage

The _natural_selection function is all you need to know to get everything out of the plugin. It is prefixed with an underscore to prevent namespace pollution, as you will never call this from the command line.

The following will depend on your terminal, as most of these key bindings are not the default. Add the following to your fish key bindings:

# Use fish_key_reader to find out supported bindings.
# If your terminal sends different sequences, you can bind those as well.

if functions --query _natural_selection
  bind escape            '_natural_selection end-selection'
  bind ctrl-r            '_natural_selection history-pager'
  bind up                '_natural_selection up-or-search'
  bind down              '_natural_selection down-or-search'
  bind left              '_natural_selection backward-char'
  bind right             '_natural_selection forward-char'
  bind shift-left        '_natural_selection backward-char --is-selecting'
  bind shift-right       '_natural_selection forward-char --is-selecting'
  bind super-left        '_natural_selection beginning-of-line'
  bind super-right       '_natural_selection end-of-line'
  bind super-shift-left  '_natural_selection beginning-of-line --is-selecting'
  bind super-shift-right '_natural_selection end-of-line --is-selecting'
  bind alt-left          '_natural_selection backward-word'
  bind alt-right         '_natural_selection forward-word'
  bind alt-shift-left    '_natural_selection backward-word --is-selecting'
  bind alt-shift-right   '_natural_selection forward-word --is-selecting'
  bind delete            '_natural_selection delete-char'
  bind backspace         '_natural_selection backward-delete-char'
  bind super-delete      '_natural_selection kill-line'
  bind super-backspace   '_natural_selection backward-kill-line'
  bind alt-backspace     '_natural_selection backward-kill-word'
  bind alt-delete        '_natural_selection kill-word'
  bind super-c           '_natural_selection copy-to-clipboard'
  bind super-x           '_natural_selection cut-to-clipboard'
  bind super-v           '_natural_selection paste-from-clipboard'
  bind super-a           '_natural_selection select-all'
  bind super-z           '_natural_selection undo'
  bind super-shift-z     '_natural_selection redo'
  bind ''                kill-selection end-selection self-insert
end

Developer Functions

_natural_selection_begin_selection

Begins the selection if not already selecting.

_natural_selection_end_selection

Ends the selection. Does not repaint command line.

_natural_selection_get_selection

Echoes the selection. Example usage:
set --local selection (_natural_selection_get_selection)

_natural_selection_is_selecting

Is there an active selection? Uses status.

_natural_selection_kill_selection

Clears the selection and its contents. Repaints the command line.

_natural_selection_replace_selection

Replaces the entire selection with <contents>.

<contents>
Standard usage.

--inset-selection-by <integer> <contents>
After replacing the contents, the resulting selected region will also be reduced by <integer> on either side.

_natural_selection_wrap_selection

Wraps the selection with two positional arguments <left> and <right> respectively. Both arguments must be the same length for this to work correctly.

<left> <right>
Standard usage.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the supported operating systems?

It was developed on macOS, and it has not been tested elsewhere. But it should work for others.

Can this work with X?

If there is a binding conflict, then no. It will need an integration (not taking requests). Typically, paired symbols plugins need integrations.

Why can I not use ⌘ Command + V for paste?

You can. But you will lose paste functionality elsewhere like editors. This needs to be worked out still.

Why are you not providing bindings on install?

The amount of bindings needed is often greater than what is available from the terminal, necessitating custom key mappings. Furthermore, there is a potential for conflicts. It is much easier to just have everyone configure this themselves.

Can this be ported to another shell?

I know this can be done with zsh, since this started out as a port of my own implementation in zsh. In fact, most of this can be done with native zsh features.

Is there a performance impact?

I cannot quantify the performance impact at this stage. I do not notice it, but I might not be as sensitive as others.

Will this work in Vi mode?

Vi mode has its own thing.