vterm-extra

Improve the user experience in vterm with convenience functions. PRs are welcome.

Installation

The most simple way to install this package is with use-package:

(use-package vterm-extra
              :load-path  "/path/of/the/repo/"
              :bind (("s-t" . vterm-extra-dispatcher)
                  :map vterm-mode-map
                  (("C-c C-e" . vterm-extra-edit-command-in-new-buffer))))

The spirit of this package is to provide a library of useful functions, without binding any to a keychord out of the box. Users should choose to one they find useful and bind them to the keybindings they like. A convenient way to do is the one reported in the previous snippet where we show how to define a keybinding that works everywhere in Emacs and one that works only in VTerm buffers. Alternatively, a more general approach to achieve the same result is

(global-set-key (kbd "s-t") 'vterm-extra-dispatcher)
(define-key vterm-mode-map (kbd "C-c C-e") 'vterm-extra-edit-command-in-new-buffer)

Functions available

vterm-extra-dispatcher

vterm-extra-dispatcher allows to easily switch to VTerm buffers or create a new ones if. If there are no VTerm buffers, or the current one is the only one, vterm-extra-dispatcher creates a new one. If the current buffer is the only VTerm buffer, it creates a new one. Otherwise, if there are other VTerm buffer there are other, it prompts the user for a new one to select (or to create), and it switches to that buffer. When called with prefix argument, vterm-extra-dispatcher always creates a new VTerm.

This function is particularly useful when VTerm buffers have names that indicate the associated hostname and path (see screenshot).

vterm-extra-edit-command-in-new-buffer

This function allows to edit commands in a separate temporary buffer. It kills the current command, create a temporary buffer. When vterm-extra-edit-done is called (bound to C-c C-c by default), the content of the buffer is sent to the associated vterm. This is done line by line, so the file has to be a valid multi-line command or series of commands. A trailing newline corresponds to sending the command.

At the moment, vterm-extra-edit-command-in-new-buffer works only if C-k is bound to kill-line in the shell and if vterm is able to detect the prompt. To make sure that C-k kills the line, add bind "\C-k":kill-line to your .bashrc (for bash), or bindkey "\C-k" kill-line in your .zshrc (for zsh). To configure the prompt detection in vterm, follow the official readme.

A current limitation is that partially input commands that span multiple lines are not correctly transferred over the temporary buffer.

This function can be used to send a list of commands that are executed one after the other.