Shift+Left/Right arrow key used to select characters in terminal.

d3vl4k5hy4 · 2026-06-20 06:39:19

I haven't changed much on the os since the installation, I haven't changed my terminal etc, so it is related to the apps that comes with the default arch installation.
Pressing shift+left/right arrow key used to select a character to left/right in terminal, weather it be the terminal that comes with the os or in vscodium.
But currently it just prints ABCD depending on the arrow key. How do I revert back to the old behavior?

I believe that it has been happening since i ran 'pacman -Syu' to update my system which I canceled multiple times in between mainly due to it taking a lot of time.
Currently, my system is up-to-date.

seth · 2026-06-20 07:43:18

related to the apps that comes with the default arch installation

That's not a thing.

But currently it just prints ABCD depending on the arrow key. How do I revert back to the old behavior?

You don't - this has nothing to do w/ the TE (or only indirectly) but the process (in doubt the shell) you're running inside and you'll have to configure that.
An unconfigured bash would exhibit the symptoms you describe and from what I can tell also doesn't work out of the box.

I assume you installed some derivate and trashed its config by copying someone elses dotfiles?

You can typically configure this in your shell rc or for readline users inputrc, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Readline

d3vl4k5hy4 · 2026-06-20 08:14:19

I think I am using bash shell. Do I have to reset its settings or config?

seth wrote:

from what I can tell also doesn't work out of the box

It does, When I first installed arch, shift select did use to work in terminal.

Also I did not change anything nor took someone else's dotfiles. All I did was update the system.

Is the default behavior for the shift+arrow key combination to select the text towards right or left?
Am I experiencing the mandela effect?

Last edited by d3vl4k5hy4 (2026-06-20 09:15:08)

seth · 2026-06-20 12:19:09

I think I am using bash shell.
It does, When I first installed arch, shift select did use to work in terminal.

Check and also what TE is this?

cat /proc/$$/cmdline
cat /proc/$PPID/cmdline

Is the default behavior for the shift+arrow key combination to select the text towards right or left?

In bash? No. In fish might be (I honestly don't know) and for zsh there're zle commands that can be scripted.
What you're asking isn't really the default anywhere and you're also running into copy/paste issues.

If anything some specific GUI terminal emulator would have intercepted the keys (and you would not get any input on the shell then, but this can cause problems w/ shell processes, eg. vim)

When I first installed arch, shift select did use to work in terminal.

Is this arch-archlinux or manjaro-archlinux or cachy-archlinux…?

d3vl4k5hy4 · 2026-06-22 10:42:12

Check and also what TE is this?

Gnome Terminal

What you're asking isn't really the default anywhere

After asking a bunch of other people on discord and installing arch on a vm, it seems that it is indeed the case.

Maybe its just an issue with my memory and I am just remembering things wrong.
I am probably confusing it with the shift + arrow key select as in nano as i use it very often.

That could be it, thanks tho

seth · 2026-06-22 15:01:47

From what I've found, gnome/vte has actively rejected intercepting those keys (what's not an unreasonable stance and thus rather pleasant surprise…)
For bash things are a bit more involved, but you can read up https://dev.to/simonleary42/adding-text … -bash-4dbc
zsh isn't that complicated and eg. tmux has a special mode to handle this anyway (tmux specific, you'll not easily get the text from there into a global clipboard) and then there's https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Alacri … copy/paste

Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-06-20 06:39:19

Shift+Left/Right arrow key used to select characters in terminal.

#2 2026-06-20 07:43:18

Re: Shift+Left/Right arrow key used to select characters in terminal.

#3 2026-06-20 08:14:19

Re: Shift+Left/Right arrow key used to select characters in terminal.

#4 2026-06-20 12:19:09

Re: Shift+Left/Right arrow key used to select characters in terminal.

#5 2026-06-22 10:42:12

Re: Shift+Left/Right arrow key used to select characters in terminal.

#6 2026-06-22 15:01:47

Re: Shift+Left/Right arrow key used to select characters in terminal.

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