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Comment by endorphine | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one that tried fzf as a replacement to the default Ctrl+R behavior, then switched back?

I'm perfectly satisfied with the default Ctrl+R functionality, to the point that fzf seemed to add visual clutter without any value.

I guess I was never let down by inverse search.

Context: I'm using Linux and doing SWE and SRE work, and constantly live in the terminal.

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It's inconceivable to me that someone could prefer the default behavior, but to each their own :)

The default ctrl+r behavior doesn't allow me to scroll up through my history of matches, which is always disappointing. Often it's some random incantation I'm trying to search for that shares a prefix with other more common commands and the default ctrl+r requires me to type out far enough to be unique, which defeats the purpose of history search. Maybe I'm missing some essential behavior that I'm not familiar with.

I don't know if the version I have is somewhat special, but I can simply keep pressing ctrl+r to search "up" for the next match.

So, type: ctrl+r, prefix, and then keep pressing ctrl+r to find everything that matches the prefix.

> that shares a prefix

ctrl+r matches any part of the line, not just the commands / start of the line. I'm often using it on a unique argument I remember last using the command with.

Imagine you have a bunch of different for loops and you want to get the one that ran a specific command. You can use something like "history | grep for | grep command" or you can use fzf. Ctrl-r, type "f o r <space>" then type "c o m m" and you'll quickly narrow down the search results.

It's the fuzziness that really beats ordinary ctrl-r, being able to search on multiple fragments of text is just fantastic.

I don't like the `Ctrl+r` interface. Instead, I use these settings in `.inputrc`. Type the command I want and use arrow keys (I prefer matching from start of the command, but you can match anywhere too).

    # use up and down arrow to match search history based on typed starting text
    "\e[A": history-search-backward
    "\e[B": history-search-forward
    
    # if you prefer to search anywhere in the command
    "\e[A":history-substring-search-backward
    "\e[B":history-substring-search-forward

Not a hard choice. So far I stick to the vanilla C-r, same as you.

But I also remember that I can C-r /fzf/ and it will search back to the command:

   source /usr/share/doc/fzf/examples/key-bindings.bash

which will instantly upgrade my search capabilities, if I'm stuck. Which doesn't really happen that much.

I think the main part of my vanilla C-r experience is that I trained myself to remember commands differently. I somehow remember exact char-to-char tokens, like the "/fzf/" substring above. Or for a more extreme example "ose -p d" when I try to find:

    docker compose -p devenv exec myservice /bin/sh

Weirdly, I kinda know that if used "se -p d" instead (shorter) it would land me on a wrong command (so, not shorter).

There's a potential well of habit that you have to climb out of before you start getting a benefit. If you don't put in the energy to try it for a while, you'll slide back down into the well.

I initially felt the same way and found it cluttered. Though I still left fzf-history around and bound it Ctrl+Alt+R so Ctrl+R could still be the default. In zsh I just did this with `bindkey '^[^R' fzf-history-widget`.

Over time I eventually found myself using Ctrl+Alt+R more and more so I made it the default and now Ctrl+Alt+R is still 'old school' history search for me.

When I learned what Ctrl-R was originally, by mistake, I was like damn... maybe the majority of shell users just have no idea how to drive bash. No wonder people lose their shit over it, it's like trying to drive a car but you're never told the car can go in reverse and the rear view mirror is just tucked up into the roof!

For me (in a similar role to you) Ctrl+R is the main reason of having fzf. Quality of Life improvement is immense.

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