dakra

> defined f1 to toggle between semi-char vs copy modes

this is useful anyway but just in case you didn't know, we automatically switch to copy-mode when it makes sense.

E.g. when you activate mark, click somewhere with the mouse or when point leaves the current prompt position.

That means that with isearch or consult-line etc you're automatically in copy-mode (because why else would you search something and then jump to that position).

For other commands like avy or flash jump packages I have this in the documentation:

;; A package that runs a hook after jumping (e.g. flash): (add-hook 'flash-after-jump-hook #'ghostel-maybe-leave-input)

;; A package without one (e.g. avy) — advise its jump action: (with-eval-after-load 'avy (advice-add 'avy-action-goto :after #'ghostel-maybe-leave-input))

Personally I use copy mode a lot but I rarely have to "manually" activate the mode.

True. I'll have to update the documentation with some examples (and/or make a video?).

I know you know them but I list the 5 modes quick here for readers:

- semi-char: The default, where most keys go to the terminal but some common Emacs prefixes (M-x, C-c) go to Emacs

- char-mode: ALL keys go to the terminal. This way you can run e.g. Emacs inside Emacs.

- copy-/emacs-mode: This makes the whole buffer a pure read-only Emacs buffer and all keys go to Emacs. The difference between copy and emacs-mode is that copy freezes the terminal output (comes originally from vterm), while in emacs-mode new output keeps coming in (adopted from eat).

- line-mode: It's like `M-x shell`, everything goes to Emacs but it's not read only but you can type text on the prompt. But nothing is send to the terminal until you press return.

> why is nvim +term has only two modes, but this one has 5

I haven't used the neovim terminal, but I guess you can compare vim insert-mode with semi-char and normal-mode with copy-mode. And surely they have a char-mode as well, or can you not run nvim inside nvim (without having to press some quote key all the time)?

That would leave only line-mode as the odd one out.

> But it's not super clear how in practice use that leverage efficently

As with all Emacs things, that's highly personal.

Currently, I use semi-char mostly and switch to copy-mode to select/copy stuff.

Very rarely do I use char or line-mode.

You have the full power of Emacs to your disposal.

I have never used WezTerm but from a quick look, it seems you can quickly copy text ace-jump style.

In Emacs you could use e.g. avy to do the same, but there is probably a bunch of other similar packages that do the same.

And additionally you're not restricted to just select/copy a word. You can freely move around and use e.g. expand-region or similar to quickly select more.

It's Emacs after all, the possibilities are endless ;)

Noted.

I didn't even think of the use-case that then you can edit output from finished commands in the scrollback. But it makes sense and is another +1 for that feature request.

And not only mouse click of course, but you can use `ghostel-previous-hyperlink` (or ghostel-next-hyperlink) to quickly jump to the last hyperlink displayed.

It also installs a repeat-mode map, so if you see 3 url or file links as output you can just `C-c C-p p p RET` and it will open the first link.

I use that feature all the time.

Ah. I tested it before but now I see that I have `(setq eshell-scroll-to-bottom-on-input 'all)` in my config which always snapped point back to the prompt when I tried to edit the scrollback.

Anyway, unfortunately that is not possible in a Ghostel buffer and most likely also will never be. I'm open to ideas though how we could improve or replicate your eshell workflow.

But also, eshell is awesome and Ghostel is not a replacement for it. It's more a replacement for term.el, maybe shell.el (with line-mode) and other terminal packages like eat and vterm.

Did you see ghostel line-mode? This basically gives you a `M-x shell` experience where everything is a buffer and nothing is send to the terminal until you press enter.

There you could type on the prompt line and then call jinx or your quote wrapping function etc as it's just a normal Emacs buffer. You can't edit the scrollback buffer though, but I don't think that's possible in eshell either.

But line-mode has it's own set of problems. Since we don't send anything to the shell, you could have some problems with autocomplete or similar things that change the text depending on each typed char. Similarly we automatically disable line-mode when you enter a TUI (alt-screen) app, as line-mode doesn't make too much sense in e.g. vim. But that's configurable and you can still force line-mode, it really depends on the TUI apps.

We try to support as much as possible and work around things like fish autocomplete etc. But please try and report any issues you find.

That's because MELPA (and ELPA) doesn't have a way to attach platform specific files. It's all just git checkouts.

That means we would have to check in the module binary for all platforms (>10MB together) if we want that it comes with the distribution.

Also looking at e.g. jinx, another popular package that uses Emacs native modules, it does it like vterm and offers to compile on first usage.

So as a Emacs package author, for a user friendly installation you can realistically only offer to download or compile on first use.

> I thought it was named Ghostel because of Ghostty and EL (emacs lisp).

It was. But I like the Postels law relation as well :)