Cannot select text

[ElDanteDelAnte]

I'm running on Arch Linux. On two separate installs I am unable to select text for cut/copy. The intended method for this is not well documented but I presume it's holding SHIFT and using arrow keys or the like. This is not working. CTRL+W can select individual words but this seems wildly insufficient and inefficient.

[davidgiven]

Are you using a terminal emulator (and if so, which one) or the X version? And which version of WordGrinder are you using?

[ElDanteDelAnte]

I am using the Arch TTY. If I am finding that I am able to select text with shift when using the Kitty emulator but the objective is to use the TTY

[davidgiven]

When you say 'Arch TTY' do you mean a virtual console, without running X at all?

The Linux VT isn't brilliant and I've always had problems with it, especially with Unicode. Using something like Kitty to replace it is a really good idea. You might have luck fiddling with your TERM setting; it's possible that the default isn't right for console terminal. Unfortunately, it's nothing I have control over.

You can also select text by doing CTRL+SPACE to start or stop selection and then using the cursor keys to extend it. You may have better luck with that.

[ElDanteDelAnte]

Thank you for this.

For productivity and learning purposes I'm trying to commit to using a full-CLI environment without display managers or X at all. I'll see what I can do about the TERM settings but the CTRL+SPACE trick seems to work. I've been trying to use documentation and tutorials to use the highlight feature but for some reason the documentation on this particular feature isn't as visible as it could be.

[mke21]

The problem is the Linux Term, which does not play well with ncurses. If you install something like tmux, you can either run in tmux or use the command TERM=tmux wordgrinder and wordgrinder keybindings will work as expected.

[mke21]

Okay, the real solution for using Wordgrinder inside the Arch linux virtual console (or tty) is writing your own terminfo. You can do the following:

mkdir -p ~/.terminfo

cat > ~/linux-wg.src <<'EOF'
linux-wg|Linux console with WordGrinder modified cursor keys,
        use=linux,
        kLFT=\E[1;2D,
        kRIT=\E[1;2C,
        kri=\E[1;2A,
        kind=\E[1;2B,
EOF

tic -o ~/.terminfo ~/linux-wg.src

You can now start wordgrinder with the command:
TERM=linux-wg wordgrinder

The selection using shift+arrows should work fine and so should all the other keybindings.