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Ctrl+Shift+C (and Ctrl+C with a selection) send ^C instead of copying on Linux/Windows

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
68/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
typescript
Domain
frontend

Research direction

The key handling lives in handleKeyDown in lib/input-handler.ts, which currently special-cases only metaKey plus KeyC and reaches the existing onCopyCallback. Run the reproduction snippet from the issue and confirm that a keydown with ctrlKey and shiftKey still reaches onData as "\u0003". Done means Ctrl+Shift+C invokes the copy callback and sends nothing to the PTY, and Ctrl+C copies only when a selection exists, otherwise it still sends ^C. Check the Cmd+C path still behaves the same.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Summary

On Linux and Windows there is no keyboard way to copy the terminal selection: Ctrl+Shift+C (the terminal copy chord everywhere on those platforms) is passed to the key encoder and sent to the PTY as ^C (0x03), and plain Ctrl+C with text selected also sends ^C. Only Cmd+C (macOS, event.metaKey && event.code === 'KeyC') triggers the copy path. In a shell this means the user selects text, presses the copy shortcut, and interrupts their running program.

Seen on [email protected]; main (lib/input-handler.ts) still only special-cases metaKey + KeyC.

Minimal reproduction

<div id="t"></div>
<script type="module">
  import { init, Terminal } from 'ghostty-web';
  await init();
  const term = new Terminal();
  term.open(document.getElementById('t'));
  term.onData((d) => console.log(JSON.stringify(d)));
  term.write('hello world');
  term.select(0, 0, 5);            // "hello"
  console.log(term.getSelection()); // "hello"
  term.focus();
  term.element.dispatchEvent(new KeyboardEvent('keydown', { key: 'C', code: 'KeyC', ctrlKey: true, shiftKey: true, bubbles: true, cancelable: true }));
</script>

Actual: onData receives "\u0003"; the clipboard is untouched. Expected: the selection is copied and nothing is sent to the PTY (Ctrl+Shift+C), and ideally Ctrl+C copies instead of interrupting when a selection exists (xterm.js users get this from attachCustomKeyEventHandler; Windows Terminal and GNOME Terminal behave this way).

Suggested fix

In handleKeyDown, treat (ctrlKey && shiftKey && code === 'KeyC') as copy using the existing onCopyCallback (always swallow it, never forward ^C), and ctrlKey && !shiftKey && code === 'KeyC' as copy when onCopyCallback() reports a selection.

Found while evaluating ghostty-web as a PTY renderer for https://github.com/erisera-code/clawser; the host currently works around it with attachCustomKeyEventHandler.

Dominant language
TypeScript
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