Command palette¶

The command palette finds and runs any command of the main window's menus when you type a few letters of its name, so you need neither the mouse nor the place of the command in the menus. It also runs the right-click commands of the terminal you are in, such as Clear Buffer or Reconnect, switches to any open tab, the ones you used last first, including the terminal tabs of your other korTTY windows, opens a tab for any saved or shared teamwork connection, and runs any snippet of the Snippet Manager in the terminal. It reaches every menu command while the menu bar is hidden and in terminal-only fullscreen.

Opening the palette¶

• Press Ctrl+Shift+P (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS), or choose View → Command Palette…. The same keys close it again.
• The keys work in every tab of a main window, also while a terminal, a snippet editor or another tool tab has the keyboard focus, with the menu bar hidden and in terminal-only fullscreen. A tool that opens in a window of its own, instead of as a tab, has no palette.
• Choose View → Snippet Palette… to open it with $ already typed, listing only the snippets (see Snippet palette).
• On Windows and Linux korTTY keeps Ctrl+Shift+P for itself, so it does not reach the program in the terminal, while plain Ctrl+P (the previous command in bash) still reaches the shell. AltGr combinations, which arrive as Ctrl+Alt, are left alone too.

The palette opens at the top of the window with an empty search field. On macOS, when the menu bar of a window you closed is still shown, View → Command Palette… opens the palette in the frontmost open window.

Finding a command¶

Type part of a command's name. The letters have to appear in that order but not next to each other, and case does not matter, so nwin finds New Window. Each row shows:

• a Command badge;
• the command's name as its menu shows it, followed by its menu path in grey, for example Dock Left View › Live Journal;
• a check mark when the command is a setting that is on, such as Show Dashboard;
• its keyboard shortcut, if it has one, also one you chose yourself in Settings → Keyboard.

The menu path is searched as well, which keeps the commands with the same name apart: journal left finds View › Live Journal › Dock Left, and file left finds View › File Browser › Show on Left. A match in the name ranks above a match in the path, and among equally good matches the commands you chose recently come first.

With nothing typed, the palette lists the commands and connections you chose recently, up to eight and newest first, then the open tabs, and then every command, menu by menu. Other connections only appear once you type. Snippets never appear before you type, not even the ones you ran recently, because a snippet runs a command in the terminal. Next to the menu commands it offers Next Tab and Previous Tab, which switch tabs like Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab, and the terminal and tab commands.

Typed first, a scope character limits the list to one kind of row: > lists only commands, # only tabs, @ only connections and $ only snippets, so >close finds the close commands but no tab whose name contains "close". The line below the list names these characters.

The list of recent choices lasts until korTTY quits; all windows share it and it is never saved. What you type into the palette is neither logged nor sent anywhere.

Terminal and tab commands¶

The palette also offers the commands of the terminal's and the tab's right-click menus that the menu bar does not have. They act on the terminal tab you are in, and the terminal commands on its focused pane, the one your typing goes to and that Edit → Find… searches:

In any other kind of tab, such as a snippet editor, these rows are greyed out. Find is not listed a second time: type find for Edit → Find…, which opens the search of the focused pane.

The pane commands are not in this table because the menu bar has them: the commands of View → Panes and View → Multi-exec are rows like every other menu command, with their menu path, shortcut and check mark. Type split right for Split Right View › Panes, which splits the focused pane on its own server like Split Right (same server) in the right-click menu, with the same progress dialog and the same server policy check, and moves the keyboard into the new pane. Split Down, Split Pane, Close Pane, the focus commands, Next Pane, Previous Pane, Zoom Pane, Broadcast to All Panes of This Tab and the Multi-exec commands are found the same way and do exactly what their menu items do; a row is greyed out while its menu item is, so the commands that close, focus or zoom a pane need two or more panes. Zoom Pane, the broadcast command, Include This Pane and Include All Panes of This Tab show a check mark while they are on, and broadcast mode can always be switched off, also when only one pane is left.

Switching tabs¶

Every tab of the window is a row with a Tab badge, named as the tab bar names it: the name you gave it with Rename Tab, the title its shell set, or the name of its connection, without the group prefix and the connection status. The grey detail of a terminal tab names where it is connected, as user@host taken from the saved connection (or the connection's name for a local shell), and its tab group, for example root@db-01 · Production. A program in the terminal can set the tab's title but not this detail, so a title that imitates another server does not hide where the tab really is; a long title is cut at half the row, so it cannot push the detail out of sight either.

The tabs are listed in the order you last used them, the most recent first, and when you type, equally good matches keep that order. The tab you are in comes last and is marked Current tab, so typing # and pressing Enter goes back to the tab you used before it. A tab counts as used when you select it, with the mouse, with keys such as Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+1, or from the palette. With Ctrl+Tab in this order switched on, stepping through the tabs with Ctrl held counts only the tab you stop at. Closing several tabs at once, regrouping them or dragging a tab to another place counts only the tab shown afterwards, not the tabs the selection passes over on the way. The order lasts as long as the window and is never saved.

The terminal tabs of your other korTTY windows follow, each window's tabs in the order they were used there, with the window's number in front of the detail, such as Window 2 · admin@web-01; a window's number is its place among the open windows, in the order they opened. Choosing such a tab brings its window to the front, restores it when it is minimized, and selects the tab there. Other kinds of tabs of the other windows, such as editors or AI results, are not listed.

Connecting¶

Every connection saved in the Connection Manager is a row with a Connection badge, named as the Connection Manager names it. The grey detail says where it connects, as user@host (Local Shell for a local shell), and its group, for example postgres@db-01.example.org · Production; a connection without a name of its own shows only its group there, because its name already is user@host. The detail never shows a password, a stored credential or an SSH key.

When your organization's policy allows teamwork, the connections shared with you follow, with Shared (Teamwork) in front of the detail. Their names come from a file someone else writes, so their rows always name user@host as well, even when the name looks like an address, and a long name is cut at half the row so that the detail stays in sight. Teamwork connections you deleted on this computer are not listed.

Saved connections are listed with the one you used last first, and the ones you never used by name; the teamwork connections follow by name. When you type, the connections you chose in the palette recently come first among equally good matches, and the others keep that order. Type @ to list only connections, the ones you chose in the palette recently first.

Choosing a connection opens a tab for it in this window and signs in exactly like Connect in the Connection Manager (see Signing in): korTTY checks the server policy first, then uses the saved password or key and asks only for what is missing. Cancelling a question opens no tab. Unlike the Connection Manager, a connection opened from the palette counts as used, so it moves up in the palette and among Quick Connect's frequently used connections.

A connection whose server or jump server your organization's server access policy blocks is greyed out. Choosing it keeps the palette open, and the line below the list names the blocked server and says that your organization manages it.

Running snippets¶

Every snippet of the Snippet Manager is a row with a Snippet badge, named as the library names it. Type part of its name, or of its folder, category or tags. Type $ first to list only snippets: the ones you ran from the palette recently come first, then the others, the most recently used first and the ones never used by name; among equally good matches the same order applies. The grey detail names the terminal the snippet runs in, for example Run in root@db-01.example.org (prod-db): the user@host of the pane's connection, then the tab's name. A program in the terminal can change the tab's title but not its connection, and the connection comes first, so a long title is what gets cut when the row is too narrow, never the server. Typing a tab's or a server's name does not list every snippet, because a snippet is not found by the terminal its row names.

Choosing a snippet runs it exactly like Send to Terminal in the Snippet Manager: korTTY replaces its placeholders, asks for a declared variable that has no stored value (cancelling sends nothing), sends it as a one-liner where the language allows, executes it with Enter, switches to the tab and shows Sent to … in the status bar. It runs in the terminal tab you are in, or, when another kind of tab such as the Snippet Manager is selected, in the terminal tab you used last (or the only one that is open), and in that tab's focused pane: the pane you typed in last before you opened the palette, or the tab's first pane when that one has been closed. When the tab is split, the detail names the pane by its number, for example Run in pane 2 of root@db-01.example.org (prod-db), and a pane that is a split to another server is named by its own user@host. Afterwards korTTY switches to the tab and gives that pane the focus. The snippet runs in exactly the pane its row named and is not mirrored to the other panes in broadcast mode or a multi-exec group; if that tab or pane was closed in the meantime, korTTY says that no terminal is open instead of picking another one. While a full-screen program such as vim or less runs in the pane, or a paste is still being sent to it, korTTY sends nothing and says that the pane is busy; it checks this before it asks for variables and again right before it sends.

Press Alt+Enter (Option+Enter on macOS) instead to open the snippet in the Snippet Manager without running it; the line below the list names this key while a snippet row is chosen. Without a terminal tab in the window the snippet rows are greyed out and say so, and Alt+Enter still opens them.

Snippet palette¶

View → Snippet Palette… opens the command palette with $ already typed in the search field, so it lists every snippet and nothing else, the ones you ran from the palette recently first. Type to narrow the list; what you type is added after the $. Choosing a snippet runs it exactly as described in Running snippets, in the focused pane of the terminal its row names, and Alt+Enter opens it in the Snippet Manager instead.

The Snippet Palette has no keyboard shortcut of its own by default, because Ctrl+Shift+J (Cmd+Shift+J on macOS) already opens the JobScheduler. Assign one in Settings → Keyboard; the page refuses a combination that another command or the terminal already uses. Like the palette's own shortcut, the one you choose then also works while a terminal has the focus, with the menu bar hidden and in terminal-only fullscreen, and pressing it while the palette is open closes it. On macOS, when the menu bar of a window you closed is still shown, View → Snippet Palette… opens the palette in the frontmost open window.

Running a command¶

The palette closes first and then runs the command exactly as its menu item does: a dialog opens, a setting such as Show Dashboard is switched, and Edit → Find… opens the search of the active terminal. A tab row selects its tab, a connection row opens a tab for its connection, and a snippet row runs its snippet in the terminal it names. A click outside the palette closes it as well.

Commands that cannot run right now are greyed out, such as Unlock Vault… while the vault is already open or Rename Tab… outside a terminal tab. Choosing one keeps the palette open, and the line below the list says why: Not available right now, or that your organization manages the feature when its policy switched the feature off.

Clear Buffer and Find on Windows and Linux¶

On Windows and Linux Ctrl+L and Ctrl+F go to the program in the terminal, so the terminal's Clear Buffer and its search have no key of their own there. Open the palette and type clear for Clear Buffer or find for Edit → Find… to reach them from the keyboard.