Shell layer

Emacs supports three types of shell:

• the Emacs shell
• the inferior shell
• the terminal emulator
• the ANSI terminal emulator

You can find a quick introductions to them here.

To define the default shell you can set the layer variable shell-default-shell to the following variables:

• eshell
• shell
• term
• ansi-term
• multi-term

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
  '((shell :variables shell-default-shell 'eshell)))

The default shell is quickly accessible via a the default shortcut key SPC '​.

It is possible to choose where the shell should pop up by setting the variable shell-default-position to either top, bottom, left, right, or full. Default value is bottom. It is also possible to set the default height in percents with the variable shell-default-height. Default value is 30.

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
  '((shell :variables
           shell-default-position 'bottom
           shell-default-height 30)))

The default shell can be set by setting the variable shell-default-term-shell. Default value is /bin/bash.

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
  '((shell :variables shell-default-term-shell "/bin/bash")))

By default the popup buffer spans the full width of the current frame, if you prefer to spans only the width of the current window then set the layer variable shell-default-full-span to nil.

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
  '((shell :variables shell-default-full-span nil)))

From the em-smart documentation:

The best way to get a sense of what this code is trying to do is by using it. Basically, the philosophy represents a blend between the ease of use of modern day shells, and the review-before-you-proceed mentality of Plan 9's 9term.

In a nutshell, when em-smart is enabled point won't jump at the end of the buffer when a command is executed, it will stay at the same command prompt used to execute the command. This allows to quickly edit the last command in the case of a mistake. If there is no mistake and you directly type a new command then the prompt will jump to the next prompt at the end of the buffer.

To enable em-smart put the following layer variable to non-nil:

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
  '((shell :variables shell-enable-smart-eshell t)))

Comint mode (Shell mode) has good support for Evil mode as it inhibits movement commands over the prompt. This has the added benefit that Evil mode functions work sensibly. E.g. you can press cc in normal state i.e. evil-change-whole-line to kill the current input and start typing a new command. In Eshell you also kill the prompt, which is often unintended.

By default this layer also protects the eshell prompt. If you want to disable this protection you can set the variable shell-protect-eshell-prompt to nil.

(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
  '((shell :variables shell-protect-eshell-prompt nil)))

Making fish shell to work with ansi-term may be a challenge, here are some pointers to save you time to setup your environment correctly.

First be sure ~/.terminfo is setup correctly by running:

tic -o ~/.terminfo $TERMINFO/e/eterm-color.ti

You can locate the eterm-colors.ti file with:

locate eterm-color.ti

Then setup your fish configuration file (usually at ~/.config/fish/config.fish)

# emacs ansi-term support
if test -n "$EMACS"
  set -x TERM eterm-color
end

# this function may be required
function fish_title
  true
end

Finally you may need to toggle truncated lines for some prompts to work correctly, in the function dotspacemacs/user-config of your dotfile add:

(add-hook 'term-mode-hook 'toggle-truncate-lines)