Edit and View modes
Keyboard bindings vary between these 3 main modes:
- In character input mode (character-at-a-time mode?)
most keystrokes become characters sent directly to the application.
- In line-edit mode most keystrokes update a local “input area”.
Plain characters are inserted; other keystrokes are editing commands.
The contents of the input area are only sent to the application
when you press Enter (normally).
(This mode is similar to shell mode in Emacs.)
- View mode is designed for read-only movement in the
buffer, as well as selecting text.
The output may also be paused, in which case output
from the applcation is queued up instead of updating the buffer.
On addition:
- Automatic input mode automatically
switches between character-at-a-time mode and line-edit mode.
This is the default.
It is done based on the terminal mode of
the application’s PTY:
If the terminal is in raw mode it is expecting characters as they
are typed, so DomTerm selects character-at-a-time mode.
If the terminal is in cooked mode,
the application reads entire lines that
have been put together by the operating system,
so DomTerm selects line-edit mode (so you get DomTerm’s superior
“input cooking” editor instead of the very basic one
provided by most operating systems).
See here for technical details.
You can switch between character mode, line mode,
or automatic mode using the Terminal menu in the menubar;
the Input mode entry in context (popup) menu;
or the Ctrl-Shift-L shortcut:
- Ctrl-Shift-L
Cycle between input modes: character (character-at-a-time),
line (line-edit), or automatic.