Suggestion: Allow line selection in terminal

[chrisdias]

testing #46594

Suggestion: Allow selecting a line at a time while navigating in terminal line by line.

With #46594 I can use CMD+UpArrow CMD+DownArrow to navigate, and can press Shift+CMD+UpArrow and Shift+CMD+DownArrow to select a block of text in the terminal (between commands). This is cool for selecting blocks of text that are the output of a command.

But, what if I want to select a single line at a time? Since I can use CMD+ALT+PageUp and CMD+ALT+PageDown to navigate line by line in the terminal, perhaps Shift+CMD+ALT+PageUp and Shift+CMD+ALT+PageDown could be used for that.

[Tyriar]

Opening to PRs, this will involve adding 2 new commands terminal.integrated.selectToNextLine/selectToPreviousLine and handling it within TerminalCommandTracker.

[ddruker]

@Tyriar Mind if I tackle this? I was just in the integrated terminal code so this code be a good issue for me.

[Tyriar]

@ddruker sure! This will probably involve having some additional state in TerminalCommandTracker to tell whether it's a command or a line focused.

https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/3fbfccad359e278a4fbde106328b2b8e2e2242a7/src/vs/workbench/parts/terminal/node/terminalCommandTracker.ts#L25-L26

We probably want to create a new marker whenever the line is changed (if the previous line is not a command), if we just track it with a number it might be invalid when lines are trimmed off the top of the terminal.

[ddruker]

@Tyriar I'm assuming this would only be previous line selection and only one line can be selected at a time using the proposed commands. Does that sound right?

Also, would the UX be similar to line by line navigation, where the terminal window always scrolls? For example, the terminal window does not need to scroll unless the line is out of view.

[Tyriar]

I'm assuming this would only be previous line selection and only one line can be selected at a time using the proposed commands. Does that sound right?

Next should be added as well to mirror the existing commands. Users could for example go one line too far and want to go back.

Also, would the UX be similar to line by line navigation, where the terminal window always scrolls? For example, the terminal window does not need to scroll unless the line is out of view.

@ddruker for the selectTo* commands, the 'focused' line is always in the middle of the viewport.

[ddruker]

Very good. Thank you! 🙏

…

On Apr 9, 2018, at 1:18 PM, Daniel Imms ***@***.***> wrote: I'm assuming this would only be previous line selection and only one line can be selected at a time using the proposed commands. Does that sound right? Next should be added as well to mirror the existing commands. Users could for example go one line too far and want to go back. Also, would the UX be similar to line by line navigation, where the terminal window always scrolls? For example, the terminal window does not need to scroll unless the line is out of view. @ddruker for the selectTo* commands, the 'focused' line is always in the middle of the viewport. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[Tyriar]

Commands added in #47991

[isidorn]

Select to previous line works great.
However I was not able to get anything useful from the select to next line since I always have the last line focused in my terminal. Even if I select some text in the middle of the terminal select to next
line simply jumps back to last line. What am I missing here?

[Tyriar]

@isidorn select next command/line need to be used after select previous command/line.

[isidorn]

@Tyriar ok, adding verified even though I find it a bit unintuitive.
I would expect that the select next line would work even if I have 3 lines manualy selected.