Clear Vim Terminal window

Question

Vim's new :terminal feature is pretty neat, but when I run something like a rails server, I want to be able to clear logging output every now and then.

The usual methods in a non-vim term window don't seem to work, like <D-k> (Cmd-k clears scrollback in Terminal.app on macOS), etc.

I've tried <C-w>:Clear<CR>, but it seems to be for something different as well.

If I weren't running a rails server, I could just type clear in the terminal.

I glanced through :help :term, and I'm not seeing what I want jump out at me.

Answer 1

Use https://github.com/kassio/neoterm.

It provides A better terminal support.

You can use the command :<terminal number>Tclear to clear the terminal. :Tclear for the last opened/active terminal (not sure which).

Answer 2

I don't know how to clear the previous texts but if you have problem with scrolling back to the last command after executing it you can go to text mood by pressing ctrl + W N and set mark by pressing m <any key on the keyboard> press i to comeback to interactive mode and and execute your command and when you finished again go back to text mode by pressing ctrl + W N and go to the previously marked place by pressing ' <that key you have pressed before>.

Answer 3

Going through Vim's terminal.txt, I don't think you have a chance to clear the window.

It's because Vim doesn't do anything about <c-l>, just passing it as well as other typed keys to the running job, like bash or rails server. (when your focus is in the window)

The <c-w>:clear doesn't do the trick, either. The command is abbreviation of :clearjumps for newer Vim versions.

For normal terminal, like gnome-terminal or mac's terminal, it's the terminal dealing with your <c-l> or <cmd-l>, <cmd-k>. Vim's terminal looks not doing it.

However, I happened to try out a workaround. You can try it for your environment:

:tmap <c-l> <c-w>s<c-w>c

• tmap is mapping specific for terminal job mode.
• <c-w>s creates a new window, and when <c-w>c closes it and gets back, the terminal is cleared.

Answer 4

put this in ~/.zshrc:

# I export nvimServer_4_TermAPI, a env-var defined by myself, in some other place...
cle(){
    clear
    nvim --server "$nvimServer_4_TermAPI" \
         --remote-expr   "Tapi_clear(0)"
}

put this in init.vim:

    func! Tapi_clear(buf) abort
        try
            let ori_scrollback = getbufvar('', '&scrollback')
            setl scrollback=1
            sleep 100m
            exe 'setl scrollback=' . ori_scrollback
        catch
            echom 'Tapi_clear有错'
        endtry
        return ''
    endf

Inspired by this in autoload/neoterm.vim of https://github.com/kassio/neoterm:

        if get(a:opts, 'force_clear', 0)
            let l:bufname = bufname(l:instance.buffer_id)
            let l:scrollback = getbufvar(l:bufname, '&scrollback')

            call setbufvar(l:bufname, '&scrollback', 1)
            sleep 100m
            call setbufvar(l:bufname, '&scrollback', l:scrollback)
        end

About shell command clear

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/410708/the-easiest-way-to-clear-scrollback-buffer-of-terminal-some-deeper-explanation/741099#741099