===================== Dirswitch for Emacs

This package adds fish-style, in-line directory switching much in the same way that M-r grants in-line history searching in M-x shell.

You cycle through directories you've visited in shell-mode by pressing C-M-n or C-M-p. Dirswitch will automatically choose the selected item after a short timeout interval or you can press RET to accept the choice immediately.

Important Installation Instructions

dirswitch uses dirtrack to track the current directory and record each directory switch you do in an internal ring that, much like the mark or kill ring, will let you cycle through past directories.

You must use dirtrack-mode and dirtrack-mode needs to be configured first; to do this, alter dirtrack-list with a regular expression that matches the type of prompt you use.

By default shell-dirtrack-mode is used; dirtrack and shell-dirtrack-mode are at odds with one another and you must disable shell-dirtrack-mode. See the example below.

Example Dirtrack Configuration

For instance, the default Debian/Ubuntu prompt is::

username@hostname:/my/directory/here$

And a matching dirtrack regex is::

(setq dirtrack-list '("^[^:\n]+@[^:\n]+:\(.+\)[$#]" 1))

You must also disable the built-in shell-dirtrack-mode' which monitors cd' commands to determine your current directory. A complete and working example to put in your init.el would be::

(require 'dirswitch) (defun enable-dirswitch () (dirtrack-mode 1) (setq dirtrack-list '("^[^:\n]+@[^:\n]+:\(.+\)[$#]" 1)) (shell-dirtrack-mode -1) (dirswitch-mode 1))

(add-hook 'shell-mode-hook 'enable-dirswitch)

Restart M-x shell and dirtracking should now work. You can then cycle through past directories with C-M-p and C-M-n; press RET to switch to the displayed directory or ESC or C-g to abort.

Known Issues

This won't work right in Terminal Emacs. It's probably related to overriding-terminal-local-map.

It also won't work in eshell. Why? Because eshell does not use comint; that's not to say it can't be made to support it, but currently it does not.