Duplicating some UNIX behaviors

Discussion in 'Mac Apps and Mac App Store' started by DaiKirai, Feb 19, 2005.

Most Liked Posts
  1. DaiKirai, Feb 19, 2005

    DaiKirai macrumors member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2005
    #1
    The Mini and OS X are great so far, but there's a couple of *NIX features I'm really missing, and things that don't work as I expected. I wondered if it's possible to duplicate these somewhere in System Preferences or using third-party software.

    1: The alternate clipboard. Selecting text copies it automatically; middle-clicking pastes it. Distinct from the clipboard operated on by control/command-C and V. It's somewhat clumsier then normal copying, but very convenient, and you still have the other clipboard available when you don't want to accidently obliterate its contents by selecting something.

    2: On other OSes, the 'home' and 'end' keys usually operate on the line containing the cursor. In Mac OS X they instead affect the field with a scrollbar (Colloquy, Terminal) or do nothing at all (Shiira, while typing this post.)

    3: While using 'less' in a terminal, page up and page down don't scroll the document. This makes it painfully slow to work through a document, if I don't have a keyword I can search for.

    Know any solutions? Thanks in advance for your assistance.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  2. Mitthrawnuruodo, Feb 19, 2005

    Mitthrawnuruodo Moderator emeritus

    Mitthrawnuruodo

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2004
    Location:
    Bergen, Norway
    #2
    1. Try some third party apps on Max OS X Software (from your Apple menu) or Versiontracker...

    2 & 3. Try the arrows, when I use less, I can scroll up/down with arrow up/down on my iBook... cmd-arrow left/right moves the cursor to start/end of line, and cmd-arrow up/down moves the cursor to the start/end of the text when replying in Firefox...

    Enjoy Mac OS X, it really is a *nix flavour... just wait 'til you get the taste of it... ;)
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  3. jeremy.king, Feb 19, 2005

    jeremy.king macrumors 603

    jeremy.king

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2002
    Location:
    Fuquay Varina, NC
    #3
    control+f = forward a page
    control+b = back a page
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  4. Mitthrawnuruodo, Feb 19, 2005

    Mitthrawnuruodo Moderator emeritus

    Mitthrawnuruodo

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2004
    Location:
    Bergen, Norway
    #4
    share
    + Quote Reply
  5. daveL, Feb 19, 2005

    daveL macrumors 68020

    daveL

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2003
    Location:
    Montana
    #5
    In case you don't know, there's also the Darwin "ports" and Fink projects that bring the full spectrum of open source to OS X. Ports and Fink have very similar functionality, but "ports" is native to the larger Darwin project.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  6. DaiKirai, Feb 19, 2005

    DaiKirai thread starter macrumors member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2005
    #6
    OK, but it doesn't make much sense. :confused: The Page Up and Page Down keys are there, and they work in other OSes... why not OS X? I'm guessing it's something to do with terminal capabilities, which I don't know enough about to fix on my own.

    Command+arrow keys I think I can get used to, and I can't argue with the way Mac OS X uses Home and End differently.

    Thanks, Mitthrawnuruodo, but Exposé and the Dock do everything I used virtual desktops for, and better :)

    daveL, I'm using Gentoo/OSX... it was rather tricky coaxing GTK+ into compiling, and somehow I ended up with a Gimp build that lacks JPEG file support, but I like the do-it-yourself feeling and being able to main ties with the Gentoo community.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  7. DaiKirai, Feb 20, 2005

    DaiKirai thread starter macrumors member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2005
    #7
    Command+arrow keys doesn't seem to work in Terminal. :(
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  8. jeremy.king, Feb 20, 2005

    jeremy.king macrumors 603

    jeremy.king

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2002
    Location:
    Fuquay Varina, NC
    #8
    ctrl+f and ctrl+b are the original keystrokes for navigating pages, and to my knowledge, work in any *nix OS - that is with less, more, and vi commands.

    You could probably map page up and page down using the stty command.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  9. yellow, Feb 20, 2005

    yellow Moderator emeritus

    yellow

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2003
    Location:
    Portland, OR
    #9
    IN any flavor of UNIX (and UNIX-like OSs), I've never used anything other then spacebar to scroll forward a page and b to scroll back within more or less..
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  10. daveL, Feb 20, 2005

    daveL macrumors 68020

    daveL

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2003
    Location:
    Montana
    #10
    Page Up and Page Down in terminal moves you back and forth in your scroll back buffer, that's why that don't work as you expect in "less" or whatever. As said above, crtl-b and crtl-f are the standard (vi) page back, page forward keys sequences.

    I hadn't known about Gentoo/OSX. There are aspects of 'emerge' that I like, although the 'USE' variable is getting to be more than cumbersome, to me.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  11. bankshot, Feb 21, 2005

    bankshot macrumors 65816

    bankshot

    Joined:
    Jan 23, 2003
    Location:
    Southern California
    #11
    By default, Terminal is setup to use Shift-PageUp and Shift-PageDown to send PageUp and PageDown keys to the terminal session. I prefer the xterm convention, which has Shift-PageUp/Down scrolling the window and unmodified keys sent to the session. It's easy to do: go to Terminal menu, Window Settings. Go to the Keyboard screen and edit the definitions for page down, page up, shift page down, and shift page up. I just added or removed the shift modifier to swap their functions.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  12. daveL, Feb 21, 2005

    daveL macrumors 68020

    daveL

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2003
    Location:
    Montana
    #12
    I wasn't complaining; I don't have a problem with the default behavior. Thanks for the tip, though.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)

Share This Page