MisTTY runs a shell interactively under Emacs 29.1 and later, just like
M-x shell does.
In a MisTTY buffer, just like in a normal shell buffer, the usual native Emacs movement and editing work. What also work is everything that you normally only have in a terminal, such as TAB-completion and native shell history.
MisTTY works well with Bash and ZSH, but it is especially well suited to running Fish: you get autosuggestions, completion in full colors. Here's what the end result might look like:
The following is just a quick introduction. Read the full documentation at https://mistty.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
You can install MisTTY:
- from MELPA, by typing
M-x package-install mistty - from source, by executing
(package-vc-install "https://github.com/szermatt/mistty")
Type M-x mistty to launch a new shell buffer in MisTTY mode, then
use it as you would comint.
You'll quickly notice some differences. For example TAB completion working just like in a terminal instead of relying of Emacs completion.
The purple line on the left indicates the portion of the buffer that's a terminal. What you type in there gets sent to the program, usually a shell, and translated by that program. The rest of the buffer is normal, editable, text.
Commands that takes the whole screen such as less or vi take you
into terminal mode for the duration of that command. You can still
access previous commands in the "scrollback" MisTTY buffer by typing
C-c C-j.
If you ever get into a situation where a command needs you to press
keys normally sent to Emacs, such as the arrow keys, press C-c C-q.
It'll send all key strokes directly to the terminal until you exit
the mode by pressing C-g. To send a single key to the terminal
you can also press C-q <key> instead.
You will very likely want to send some keys you use often directly
to the terminal. This is done by binding keys to mistty-send-key
in mistty-prompt-map. For example:
(use-package mistty
:bind (("C-c s" . mistty)
;; bind here the shortcuts you'd like the
;; shell to handle instead of Emacs.
:map mistty-prompt-map
;; fish: directory history
("M-<up>" . mistty-send-key)
("M-<down>" . mistty-send-key)
("M-<left>" . mistty-send-key)
("M-<right>" . mistty-send-key)))See also the documentation for more details on configuring MisTTY for different shells.
MisTTY requires Emacs 29.1 or later.
See the Contributing section of the documentation.