Key Binding

When kcd is first in full screen display, it stays in the navigation mode where you can use arrow keys to move the highlight bar around to any directory you want. There is another mode called find mode which highlight bar is restricted to directories that match the string appearing at the bottom of the screen. You can distinguish find mode by the string Find: displayed at the bottom of the screen. The matching search string is displayed inside the brackets ([...]).

Note that strings both before and after -> of the symbolic links are searched in find mode.

Displayed at the last row on screen is the full path name of highlighted directory. Online help also utilizes this area. You can switch between different displays by repeatly pressing F9 key.

By default, the key binding used is the one that has been used since kcd version 1.0. It is based on arrow keys, PageUp, PageDown, Home, End and function keys. This is also referred to as kcd key binding. Beside this mode, Vi and Emacs key binding are provided. You may change the key binding via the KeyBinding configuration command. However, changing the action of individual keys is not available in the current version.

kcd Key Binding

Note that in kcd key binding mode, you can press Ctrl-F follow by a number key from 0 to 9 to get the same results as the function keys. This is handy for terminals without function key support. The number 1 to 9 correspond to F1 to F9 respectively. To emulate F10, use number 0. As an example, typing Ctrl-F-1 (Press and hold Ctrl key, press and release F, release Ctrl, then press and release 1) is the same as F1.

Navigation Mode

Arrow keys, Page up, Page down, Home and End

Move the highlight bar.

Space bar or Enter

Change to the highlighted directory and exit.

F10 or Ctrl-C

Exit without changing directory.

F8

Repaint screen.

F9 or Ctrl-R

Switch the status display between destination directory and key kelp.

Center key on numeric keypad

Center highlight bar on the middle of the screen.

Characters from a to z, from A to Z and from 0 to 9

Switch to find mode.

, and .

Panning screen left/right. This works when the directory tree is too wide to fit the screen.

Find Mode

Any characters, Ins, Del, Backspace, left arrow, right arrow

Edit search string

Up arrow or Page up, down arrow or Page down

Go to the previous or next directory that match the search string

Backspace or Del when the search string is empty or Tab

Return to navigation mode

Space bar or Enter

If the highlighted directory is a normal directory, change to that directory and exit. If the highlighted directory is a symbolic link, move highlight bar to the linked directory.

F10 or Ctrl-C

Exit without changing directory.

F8 or Ctrl-R

Repaint screen.

Vi Key Binding

In this configuration, key binding in navigation mode acts acts like cursor movement while find mode acts like text searching. All arrow keys, PageUp, PageDown, function keys, and Enter retains the same meaning as kcd key binding. Following is the list of keys available.

0, ^

First directory of line

$

Last directory of line

h, b, B

Previous directory

l, w, W

Next directory

k, -

Up

j, +, _

Down

Ctrl-B

Previous page

Ctrl-F

Next page

Ctrl-U, Ctrl-Y

Scroll up

Ctrl-D, Ctrl-E

Scroll down

g g

First page

G

Last page

/

Search forward

?

Search backward

Ctrl-L

Refresh screen

q, Z Q, Ctrl-C

Quit

For most commands, a number prefix to indicate the repeat count, such as 5 Ctrl-B representing previous 5 pages, is supported.

Emacs Key Binding

In this configuration, key binding in navigation mode acts acts like cursor movement while find mode acts like text searching. All arrow keys, PageUp, PageDown, function keys, and Enter retains the same meaning as kcd key binding. Following is the list of keys available. The notation used below is the one used in Emacs. For example, C-b means Ctrl-B while C-b usually means Alt-B.

C-a

First directory of line

C-e

Last directory of line

C-b, M-b

Previous directory

C-f, M-f

Next directory

C-p

Up

C-n

Down

M-v

Previous page

C-v

Next page

C-s

Search forward

C-r

Search backward

C-c

Quit