Say I've been working on the same project for the past few weeks, every day I like to start with a fresh terminal. This means I always start with cd /path/to/project.
When working with iTerm2 on the Mac, I very much enjoy the option to show my most frequently (and recently) used directories. Described here under 'Recent Directories'.
A quick keystroke and a pop-up appears allowing me to complete a directory path after typing cd.
Is there anything in Ubuntu which can match this behaviour?
There are some options.
1. Fuzzy finder
A utility, fuzzy finder, will do exactly what you want. Fuzzy finder is in the Ubuntu repositories (at least as of 19.04) and can be installed with
sudo apt get install fzf
Alternatively, it can be installed from its github page.
Once installed, at the prompt, press Alt+c. You immediatelly can start typing the name of a folder underneath the folder where you are. When the name appears, select it and press Enter to cd into it.
WHen typing a command, Ctrl+T will allow you to search and put any name of a folder or file on the command line.
2. Your bash history
pro (i.e. the actual name of your project): likely, you recent command cd /path/to/project will already have popped up.This will reduce your effort to four, five keystrokes. If another matching (more recent) command pops up, press Ctrl+r again to continue the reverse search.
Also typing just cd after Ctrl+r already will list the last cd command used. Continue pressing Ctrl+r to cycle through previous cd commands. However, the chance that your folder name is more unique and thus is found quicker, is higher.
3. Rofi or dmenu
With rofi or dmenu, you can easily create small menu's that dynamically represent your recent folders. rofi (or dmenu) takes a text file as input for menu items. The output of the command history | grep cd can be displayed to you through rofi as following:
history | grep cd | rofi -dmenu
Place this in a small script, and bind a hotkey to it. The hotkey will now display all your recent cd commands. Type a few letters of the directory to narrow down the list.
4. Other options
ctrl+R but it assumes you already know the name of the directory you want to go to. I enjoyed not having to think too hard, and just seeing my most recently/commonly visited directories. Maybe there is no way.
– LondonRob
Jan 04 '19 at 15:29
history | grep cd will list them all. Again, you can put this in an alias. One step further is to script that as input for the rofi menu, and bind that script to a hotkey. With one hotkey, you would then list all your recent cd commands and be able to select and run one with arrow keys and Enter.
– vanadium
Jan 04 '19 at 16:14
cd <tab>gives you all the subdirectories in the current directory. It is a general feature suggesting also command and file name completions. – muclux Jan 04 '19 at 14:02fishin the Ubuntu repositories) does this by default. – Nonny Moose Jan 05 '19 at 02:46