Terminal

Macros embeds a real terminal emulator (backed by alacritty's VT engine). Unlike the line-oriented shell, this is a full ANSI/VT terminal — curses apps, REPLs, vim, htop, and color all work.

Opening a terminal#

Key	Command	Action
C-c C-t	term	Open a terminal running your login shell
	ansi-term	Alias for term
	term-run	Open a terminal running a specific program

term (and ansi-term) launches your login shell in a read-only term-mode buffer. term-run prompts for a program and runs that instead.

Keys go to the shell#

While a terminal buffer is focused, almost every key is sent straight to the shell — including C-c, C-r, the arrow keys, and Tab. The mouse wheel scrolls the terminal's scrollback.

The one exception is the editor prefix C-x, which is reserved so window and buffer commands still work:

Key	Action
C-x o	switch to another pane
C-x k	kill the terminal buffer
C-x 2 / C-x 3	split, e.g. to keep code and a terminal side by side

Multiple terminals#

Each terminal gets a distinct buffer name, so you can run several at once. make-terminal reuses an existing terminal buffer if the name is already taken, so binding a key to a named terminal gives you a toggle-style "pop to my terminal".

Customizing#

term has no global key in Emacs, so Macros picks C-c C-t as a sensible default — rebind it in your init.scm like any other key:

(define-key "fundamental" "ctrl-c enter" 'term)