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In the default Cygwin installation, using CTRL-LEFTARROW or CTRL-RIGHTARROW simply prints 5C or 5D instead of skipping a word at a time as expected.
Home/End keys work properly, so remapping should be possible.
Tom
Posted 2011-08-10T01:17:28.673
Reputation: 3 056
141
Found a solution, posting it here for posterity.
Add the following lines to ~/.inputrc (C:\cygwin\home\<username>\.inputrc):
"\e[1;5C": forward-word # ctrl + right
"\e[1;5D": backward-word # ctrl + left
When done you can press C-x C-r to re-read the .inputrc file for the current session.
Things to note if you want other similar customisations: Use 5A and 5B for up and down arrows, and 2x for shifted versions.
The "official" key mappings are described in the Bash Reference Manual, but for a quick way to find a key mapping, in bash:
^[[1;3C^[ and replace it with \e to make \e[1;3C.inputrc file. Tom
Posted 2011-08-10T01:17:28.673
Reputation: 3 056
Some keyboard codes are not showing at all like <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Enter</kbd>. How do I find these keyboard codes via Mintty/Windows/Cygwin? – CMCDragonkai – 2016-04-06T12:06:20.777
15
Kdt
Posted 2011-08-10T01:17:28.673
Reputation: 151
2This is useful, but not really an answer to the question - perhaps it would be better as a comment to another answer? – Martin Thompson – 2017-01-12T14:29:33.923
Added to @Tom's answer above – dovetalk – 2017-05-20T15:54:37.680
7
In case you want something that'll work without custom environment settings, for instance when working on a shared account on a server or just to limit the amount of custom configuration being used, Bash has built-ins for this that work in Cygwin.
Namely Alt+f to move forward and Alt+b to move backward.
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Commands-For-Moving.html
Costa
Posted 2011-08-10T01:17:28.673
Reputation: 491
4Thanks, though I am aware of those keys and do use them. I just also use the arrow keys when it's convenient and don't want them spewing escape codes instead of doing the sane thing and moving the cursor. – Tom – 2013-03-20T22:23:29.517
0
This solution also works in msys2 consoles:
"\e[1;5C": forward-word # ctrl + right
"\e[1;5D": backward-word # ctrl + left
Just place these key combinations in the .inputrc file.
f0nzie
Posted 2011-08-10T01:17:28.673
Reputation: 101
0
When using rxvt with cygwin I found the solution at this link worked for me: control_arrow_keys_in_rxvt.
Add the following lines to ~/.inputrc :
"\eOd": backward-word
"\eOc": forward-word
Peter Tran
Posted 2011-08-10T01:17:28.673
Reputation: 101
That's when an additional layer is changing the transmitted keys (but it doesn't answer the question asked). – Nikana Reklawyks – 2012-11-03T20:46:35.437
Note that this question addresses Cygwin, but can have general application to Unix/Linux systems. If you are using PuTTY and find that the solutions here don't work for you, take a look at a question specifically about what codes to use for PuTTY.
– palswim – 2017-09-27T21:37:42.760This also happened to me under a full linux; on some advice online, I added a
~/.inputrcfile - which annulled all the linux mint defaults. You can get them back by adding$include /etc/inputrcto the top of your ~/.inputrc (assuming that /etc/inputrc is your system-wide inputrc, which it is on Linux Mint) – user208769 – 2019-10-17T14:44:27.273