Command Line Tools – Tips

Waves AI Terminal – Alternative to Windows Terminal

Waves Notes

split screen in two: click Terminal icon far right top
switch between sessions that can have multiple tabs; Top T1 or T2, can pin these
Delete and edit Workspace, click the green wave icon top left
https://docs.waveterm.dev/workspaces
Resize Pane: Press Alt + Shift + Arrow Keys

Windows Terminal Split Windows

Works in Powershell 7, WSL2 Linux windows.

Vertical Split: Press Alt + Shift + + (or =)

Horizontal Split: Press Alt + Shift + -

Close Pane: Press Ctrl + Shift + W

Move Focus: Press Alt + Arrow Keys

Resize Pane: Press Alt + Shift + Arrow Keys

Zoxide

A smarter, learning‑based directory jumper that remembers where you go and lets you hop there instantly with short queries. You can “jump” to them in just a few keystrokes. Instant shell jumps without opening a TUI. If you often think “jump to proj-api now” while staying in the prompt, zoxide is faster than launching Yazi. Zoxide works on all major shells.

zoxide query -l
zi <keyword>
(to see history list in Ubuntu, press up arrow)
zi -i
zoxide add .
zoxide remove <path>

fzf

An interactive fuzzy finder that lets you filter and select items from any list (files, directories, history, git objects) right in your terminal. Great outside a file manager. It’s a universal picker for anything lists: git branches, command history, processes, Kubernetes contexts, etc. Yazi focuses on files/dirs; fzf powers quick inline pickers in scripts and one-liners.

fzf
fd | fzf
cd "$(fd -t d | fzf)"
fzf --height 80% --layout=reverse --border
fzf --multi --bind "ctrl-a:select-all,ctrl-d:deselect-all"
fzf --preview 'eza -lah --colour=always {} 2>/dev/null || ls -la {}'
fzf --ansi --header="Type to filter; Enter to open" --prompt="files> "
fzf --exact --nth=2.. --with-nth=2..
fzf -q initial
rg -n "TODO" | fzf --ansi

nano editor

^ = Ctrl
M = Alt
-----------------------------
^k = cut line w cursor at beginning of line 

Alt, a   Mark selection starting from the cursor position
arrows to select 

Alt, u   Undo the last operation
Alt, e   Redo the last undone operation

^k = cut
Alt, 6 = copy 
^u = paste 

Yazi

A fast, Rust‑based terminal file manager with previews, tabs, and tight integrations with tools like fd, fzf, and zoxide. I reconfigured $PROFILE to start with ya instead of yazi. ya will enter last chosen file when quitting.

y or yazi to start 
q to quit 
yazi --cwd-file /tmp/yazi_cwd
arrow keys - navigation
f - filters, quickly narrow down list. 
s - search, direct jump to a file. n to jump to the next match and N to jump to the previous one 
g - menu, show size, modified date an commands, it's a toggle 
# keys: h/j/k/l move, Enter or l open, Backspace or h up, Space select,
# gg top, G bottom, q quit, Q quit without writing cwd-file

Far Commander

Windows based 2 panel file manager like Norton Commander. Runs in Powershell. Has folder, file and command history. Slower than Yazi but more traditional UI and better deep searching, including subdirectories, file contents, better wildcards. Yazi is just faster if you are in the directory you want and have lots of files to search.

In Windows type:far

In Ubuntu type: far

tab: switch panels 

Top menu: enable via F9 or click path at very top of screen, make always visible (Options > Interface Settings > Always show menu bar)
click path at top of screen on each panel to get help menus

Try different views: 
full=single column w size,date,time, my preferred default  
brief=3 columns for long lists, 
medium=default 2 columns, 
wide=single column, more space for long filenames & folder size, 
detailed=temporarily full screen single column, 
ignore others

File search: Alt F7, opens the find dialog to search files/folders by name/mask with options like subfolders and case

Folder history: Alt, F12, Search history, Ctrl, Alt,f

Document preview: Ctrl, q ; only previews text, can't preview images; F3 gives full screen view, F4 enters into Far Commander code editor, ignore, use my own external editors instead. Click Enter on a text file to open in Sublime Text.

Hide Panels: Ctrl, o (letter O), toggle hides panels temporarily to view terminal screen

Tree view: Alt, F10 (wait a second)

History (command history): Alt, F8 then Ctrl, Enter to choose and edit selected entry, enter launches in Windows. Ins, lock/unlock a history item. Shift, Del, deletes current history item. Search history, Ctrl, Alt,f

Drive Menu: Alt, F1 (shows on left menu), Alt F2 shows on right panel 

TIP: Type in command line at bottom: use regular terminal commands like cd otherwise hitting results with enter will lauch in Windows

eza

A modern, colourful ls replacement with readable defaults, optional icons, tree view, and git‑aware columns. Shows what’s inside a folder fast.

eza
eza -l lists files in long format, permissions, owner, size, mod. date
eza --group-directories-first
eza -lah (includes 3 options, long format, a=show hidden files, h=help info)
eza -la --git 
eza -T a tree view of directories and files, showing the hierarchy of the current directory recursively.
eza -T -L 2 a tree view limited to 2 levels of directory depth, showing only the top two levels of the hierarchy.
eza -lh --icons Lists files in long format (-l) with human-readable file sizes (-h) and shows icons next to files/directories (--icons, requires a Nerd Font).

less

What it does: Shows long output one screen at a time instead of flying past. Same command and keys in both WSL2 and PowerShell 7.

eza -lah | less 

Keys inside less:

Space or PageDown → next page

b or PageUp → previous page

/text → search for “text”, then n / N to jump next/previous

g → top, G → bottom

q → quit and go back to the shell

autocorrect and edit bad commands

Autocorrect is same on both WSL2 (zsh’s built in setopt correct) and Powershell 7.

WSL2
type wrong command like sl (instead of ls)
a prompt will ask for (no, yes, abort, edit)

longer errors like: git statsu
after hitting enter by mistake
type fix, return in the next line. You can then edit the previous bad command. (done by a vared function in .zshrc)

Powershell 7
on zsh style sl to ls, use up arrow to recall last command, edit and enter. Ctrl+R → reverse history search: start typing part of an old command, press Ctrl+R again to cycle.

tldr

A community‑maintained set of simplified man pages that presents concise, practical examples for everyday commands. Get most used commands for programming languages, terminal commands.

tldr <command>
tldr --update
tldr fd

rg

ripgrep is a blazing‑fast code and text string searcher that honours ignore files and provides smart, ergonomic defaults.

rg "pattern" Searches for the specified pattern in files. No additional flags mean it uses default settings (case-sensitive, recursive search in current directory).
rg -n "pattern" Displays line numbers alongside matching lines.
rg -i "pattern" Performs a case-insensitive search, ignoring case differences in the pattern.
rg -S "pattern" (capital S) Smart case search, which is case-insensitive if the pattern is all lowercase, but case-sensitive if it contains any uppercase letters.
rg -w "word" Matches pattern as a whole word, ensuring it's bounded by non-word characters (e.g., spaces, punctuation).
rg -g "!node_modules" pattern Uses a glob pattern to exclude directories or files (example here, node_modules) from the search. The ! negates the glob, excluding matches.
rg -uu "pattern" Enables double unrestricted mode, which includes hidden files (dotfiles) and ignores all ignore files (e.g., .gitignore, .rgignore), effectively searching everything.
rg -C 3 "pattern" Shows 3 lines of context before and after each matching line (change number to adjust context lines displayed).
rg -l "pattern" (lower case L) Lists only the names of files containing matches, without showing the matching lines. 
rg -F "literal text" Treats the pattern as a literal string, disabling regular expression interpretation (useful for searching exact text, including special characters). 
rg "pat" -t md

Micro

Simple and easy to use text editor. Similar commands to most Windows editors. Better than nano.
Quick Nano notes: Ctrl, o=save, Ctrl, x = exit app, select section with mouse, Ctrl, g = help. Show line numbers toggle = Esc, then #.

f: micro

Command Prompt: Ctrl e

Cut, Copy, Paste: same as Windows, Ctrl x, c, v
Select all: Ctrl, a
Select with mouse: mouse drag 

Cut entire line: Ctrl, k  

Select text: Shift, arrow keys 

Duplicate line: Ctrl, D

Navigation
Find: Ctrl, f
Find next: Ctrl, n
Find previous: Ctrl, p
Start of file: Ctrl, home
End of file: Ctrl, end 
Jump by word: Ctrl, right/left key 

Undo/Redo
Ctrl, z
Ctrl, y

Toggle line comment: Ctrl, /

Upper/Lower Case: Ctrl, u : toggle 

Toggle line numbers: Ctrl, e, set ruler false/true, enter 

jq

A powerful JSON processor for querying, transforming, and pretty‑printing JSON data on the command line.

jq . file.json
jq '.key' file.json
jq '.items[] | {id, name}' file.json
jq '.[0]' file.json
jq 'map(select(.active == true))' file.json
jq -r '.items[] | .name' file.json
jq 'add' numbers.json