Chapter 11

The terminal panel

The terminal panel runs your command-line shell below the two sides. Each side has its own shell session, which follows that side's folder.

Opening and closing the terminal

On macOS, ⌃ is the Control key. On keyboard layouts where ` is a dead key, such as German, use ⌘J.

You can also choose Commands → Terminal.

When the terminal is open, click a panel to work in it again; the terminal stays open. To change the height of the terminal, drag the line between the panels and the terminal. Orchard Commander remembers the height and whether the terminal was open.

One session per side

Each side has its own shell. The terminal shows the session of the active side: when you switch sides with Tab or by clicking a panel, the terminal switches to that side's session. The other session keeps running in the background, so a command you started there continues.

The title of the terminal shows the shell and the side, for example Terminal · zsh · ◀ left.

A side's shell starts the first time you show the terminal for that side, in the folder of that side's panel.

Panel and terminal folders

The shell and the panel of the same side follow each other:

• When you change the folder in the shell, for example with cd, the panel opens the same folder.
• When you open another folder in the panel, Orchard Commander types a cd command into the shell. Any text you had typed on the command line is cleared first.

Orchard Commander types the cd command only when the shell is waiting at its prompt. While a program is running, such as an editor or a build, it waits and changes the folder after the program ends.

The shell doesn't follow the panel to servers, into archives or into search results.

After each command you run in the terminal, the panels showing local folders are refreshed, so files you create, change or delete in the shell appear in the panels.

To stop the panel and the shell from following each other, clear Link each side's terminal and panel folders in Settings → Terminal. You can then move the shell to the panel's folder at any time with ⌃⇧` / Ctrl+Shift+` (Commands → Terminal: go to panel folder).

Keys in the terminal

While the terminal has the keyboard focus, all keys go to the shell and the programs you run in it, including Esc, Tab, the function keys and Ctrl+C. Orchard Commander's own shortcuts for these keys don't work until you return to a panel.

These keys remain available to Orchard Commander:

• the terminal shortcut (⌘J, ⌃` / Ctrl+`), which hides the terminal;
• ⌃⇧` / Ctrl+Shift+` (Terminal: go to panel folder);
• on macOS, all ⌘ shortcuts, such as ⌘K or ⌘P.

On macOS, the Option key types special characters, as in other Mac apps. On Windows and Linux, the Alt key works as the Meta key.

Pasting several lines doesn't run them one by one if your shell supports bracketed paste, which current versions of zsh, bash and fish do.

Using the mouse

Typing returns the view to the bottom.

Programs that support the mouse, such as htop, vim with mouse support turned on, or tmux, receive clicks, drags and the scroll wheel themselves. The mouse pointer changes to an arrow while a program uses the mouse. To select text in such a program, hold Shift while you drag.

In full-screen programs that don't use the mouse, such as less, the scroll wheel scrolls the program's content.

Choosing a shell

By default the terminal runs:

• macOS and Linux: your login shell (the one set for your user account, usually zsh or bash), started as a login shell so your profile is loaded;
• Windows: PowerShell 7 (pwsh) if it is installed, otherwise Windows PowerShell.

To use a different shell, enter its command in Settings → Terminal → Shell, for example /opt/homebrew/bin/fish -l or cmd.exe. The setting applies to sessions started afterwards.

Fonts and prompt icons

The terminal uses the font set in Settings → Appearance. Programming fonts with ligatures, such as Fira Code, display their ligatures.

Prompt themes such as powerlevel10k, Starship and Oh My Posh use icons that only Nerd Fonts contain. If your font lacks them, Orchard Commander uses an installed Nerd Font for these icons, for example MesloLGS NF or FiraCode Nerd Font. If no Nerd Font is installed, the icons appear as boxes; install one to fix this.

When the shell ends

When you leave the shell, for example with exit, the terminal shows that the session has ended. Press Enter to start a new one.

Quitting Orchard Commander ends both shell sessions.