alt Hacker NewsCTRL + W usually deletes everything until the previous whitespace, so it would delete the whole '/var/log/nginx/' string in OP's example. Alt + backspace usually deletes until it encounters a non-alphanumeric character.
Be careful working CTRL + W into muscle memory though, I've lost count of how many browser tabs I've closed by accident...
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In my terminal it's the exact opposite – Alt-Backspace deletes to the previous space, whereas Ctrl-W deletes to the last non-alphanumeric (such as /). I'm using fish shell in an Alacritty terminal.
Yeah, pressing Ctrl-W accidentially is a pain sometimes ... but Ctrl-Shift-T in Firefox is a godsend.
> Be careful working CTRL + W into muscle memory though, I've lost count of how many browser tabs I've closed by accident...
I still maintain this is why macOS is the best OS for terminal work -- all the common keybindings for GUI tools use a different modifier key, so e.g. ⌘C and ⌘W work the same in your terminal as they do in your browser.
(Lots of the readline/emacs-style editing keybindings work everywhere in macos as well -- ^A, ^E, ^K, ^Y, but not ^U for some reason)
Set $WORDCHARS accordingly. In your case, remove / from $WORDCHARS.
Ctrl-Shift-T usually brings that tab right back at least
> Be careful working CTRL + W into muscle memory though, I've lost count of how many browser tabs I've closed by accident...
This hurts.
Also, for the shell, if you do C+w, you can "paste" it back using C+y. Assuming you have not removed that configuration.
> Be careful working CTRL + W into muscle memory though, I've lost count of how many browser tabs I've closed by accident...
You're telling me!!!
(I use vim daily, with multiple splits in a single instance.)
Depends on the shell - bash on my Ubuntu deletes entire '/var/log/nginx/', while after switching to sh it deletes only nginx
I've installed "More Better Ctrl-W" for Chromium, and mapped Ctrl-W to do nothing, and Ctrl-D to close the current tab
...which is why I recently went to about:keyboard and removed that hotkey. I love that page.
That, and Ctrl-N. No more forest of blank browser windows when using a terminal emulator in a web page!
(Firefox only)
'man readline' contains all the useful key combinations.
Firefox v147 finally added the ability to redefine keyboard shortcuts, including ^w: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46952095
1. Load about:keyboard
2. Find "Close tab" and click "Clear" or "Change".