Use Integrated Terminals

This chapter teaches one complete terminal workflow without leaving the editor. At the end, you will have an independent shell session in a lower pane, run a full-screen program, copy retained output, and return to the previous buffer.

Open a Terminal

Run M-x terminal-open. Odra selects or creates the default terminal for the active Workspace, opens a pane below the editing pane, and moves focus to it. Your document remains visible above. Type pwd and press Return. Terminal input goes to the child process; it does not edit a document buffer.

Press C-x o to move between the editing and terminal panes. Run M-x terminal-open again to focus the same terminal, without adding a pane.

Run M-x terminal-toggle to hide the lower pane and return to editing. The process and its retained output continue to exist. Running the command again restores the session and its remembered pane height. You can also use terminal-toggle to create the initial terminal.

Keep More Than One Session

Run M-x terminal-new to create another independent shell in the same lower pane. The previous shell stays retained. Use M-x terminal-list to select a retained session. A split pane may show the same terminal session twice; both views then display the same process. Use terminal-new when you need a separate process and history.

M-x terminal-open-here starts in the active resource directory. M-x terminal-open-project uses the active or recent Project. Both open in the lower pane. M-x terminal-open-other-pane uses the ordinary other-pane display policy instead.

Run One Command

Press M-!, enter a shell command, and press Return. Odra starts a bounded task in the active resource, Project, or home directory and replaces the active pane with its terminal-backed output. The editor remains responsive while the process runs.

Press M-& for the same one-shot execution without replacing the active view. The task and its output remain available through M-x terminal-list.

Run M-x compile to execute a retained compilation command. The prompt starts with the previous command, or make before the first run. After the process finishes, press g in its result buffer or run M-x recompile to execute the same command again.

Run a Full-Screen Program

Start vim in the terminal. Arrow keys, Return, Tab, Escape, Backspace, Page Up, and Page Down are encoded for the child terminal mode. Use C-q followed by a key when you need to forward the next normalized key literally.

Exit Vim normally. Odra retains the shell session and its scrollback.

Copy Retained Output

Run M-x terminal-copy-mode. Movement and selection operate on retained terminal text without pausing the child. Copy with the ordinary copy command, then finish with Return. Press C-g to cancel the current copy operation or leave copy mode according to the current state.

Child-requested clipboard reads and writes remain denied. Explicit copy and paste continue through Odra's ordinary kill-ring and clipboard authority.

Use the Pointer in a Terminal

With pointer reporting available, the primary button focuses a visible terminal pane. The first press on an unfocused terminal changes focus only, so it cannot also activate something in the child program.

When the child is not using mouse reporting, press and drag the primary button to select retained terminal text locally. Odra enters terminal copy mode for the gesture; copy with M-w and finish with Return. M-x terminal-copy-mode, C-SPC, movement, and M-w provide the complete keyboard equivalent.

When a full-screen child requests mouse reporting, subsequent pointer events belong to that child. Hold Shift while pressing and dragging to keep the gesture local and select retained text instead. Ordinary terminal wheel events also follow the child's negotiated mouse mode; wheel scrolling of editor buffers is not part of the first pointer delivery.

Previous: Restore Layouts · User Guide · Next: Search and Navigation