iTerm2 key bindings

I recently got a new Mac mini M1 and I wanted to share my iTerm2 key bindings:

Description	Keyboard shortcut	Action	Value
Move to the beginning of the line	⌘ + ←	Send Hex Code	0x01
Move to the end of the line	⌘ + →	Send Hex Code	0x05
Deleting a line	⌘ + ←Delete	Send Hex Code	0x15
Move forward a word	⌥ + →	Send Hex Code	0x1B 0x66
Move backward a word	⌥ + ←	Send Hex Code	0x1B 0x62
Deleting a word	⌥ + ←Delete	Send Hex Code	0x17

In order to set these key bindings, you need to go to iTerm2 > Preferences > Keys > Key Bindings > + and then add the key bindings above.

Nerd Deep Dive

Terminal emulators like iTerm2 simulate the behavior of physical terminals (like the DEC VT100) from the early days of computing. These physical terminals were hardware devices used to interact with a computer, allowing users to input commands and view the output. The communication between the terminal and the computer was standardized through specific codes and sequences, facilitating text manipulation and cursor movement, among other functions.

ASCII Control Characters

ASCII, or American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. It includes a set of control characters that are intended not to represent printable information but to control devices that use ASCII, such as terminals.

Hex Code	Name	Meaning	Usage Above
0x01	SOH	Start of Heading	move to start of line
0x05	ENQ	Enquiry	move to end of line
0x15	NAK	Negative Acknowledgement	delete line
0x17	ETB	End of Transmission Block	delete word

ANSI Escape Sequences

Escape sequences are strings of characters that start with the ESC character followed by a series of characters that instruct the terminal to perform a specific action, like moving the cursor or changing text colors.

For terminals that adhere to the xterm protocol or similar, moving forward or backward by a word is often achieved through specific escape sequences rather than hex codes.

Sequence	Description
ESC + f	move forward a word
ESC + b	move backward a word

On iTerm2, you can actually use the "Send Escape Sequence" for such:

Description	Keyboard shortcut	Action	Value
Move forward a word	⌥ + →	Send Escape Sequence	f
Move backward a word	⌥ + ←	Send Escape Sequence	b

So what is the deal with 0x1B 0x66 and 0x1B 0x62 above?

The 0x1B is the hex code for the ESC character, and 0x66 and 0x62 are the hex values for f (ASCII Character 102) and b (ASCII Character 98), respectively.

This is just another way to represent the same escape sequences.