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This page lists a bunch of useful things to know when using Jin, in no particular order.

If you wish to contribute a tip or a trick, email me at at msasha AT engineer DOT com.

Getting nicer fonts for the console under Linux

The default selection of fonts with Java under Linux seems to be very limited (and to rather ugly fonts too). To add your favourite font, simply drop the .ttf file into jre/lib/fonts (where "jre" is your Java Runtime Environment directory) and restart Jin. You will then be able to select your font from the Preferences->Main Console menu.

Scrolling the console

In addition to the obvious scrollbar, you can use the following keys to scroll the console:

Typing sensitive information into the console

If you need to type something sensitive into the console (such as your admin password, or an admission of love to your favourite ICS person) you probably don't want it to keep sitting there on the screen for a snoopy coworker/child to notice. Well Jin has a solution - instead of hitting ENTER to send your command, use Shift+ENTER. This will prevent your command from being echoed to the console or saved into the command history.

Quick chatting, or F9 does more than you think

When someone sends you a tell, instead of agonizingly typing their name, you can quickly reply by hitting F9. This will put the command needed to send a tell to that someone in the console command line - usually something like "tell Hawkeye! ". You then just type your response and hit ENTER. Well, what if you're having a conversation with more than one person, or someone rudely interrupted your F9 hitting session by sending you a tell? Never fear - simply hitting F9 again (twice, that is) will get you sending a tell the 2nd last person who sent you a tell. Hitting F9 again and again will go through the last 5 people who talked to you. Just for completeness' sake, Shift+F9 will traverse that list in the opposite direction.

Switching between Jin windows

A few versions ago, I have added the Control+Tab and Control+Shift+Tab shortcuts to quickly switch between Jin's (internal windows). Unfortunately, KDE already uses these shortcuts for switching between virtual desktops. What I have done to battle this, is to add two more shortcuts which do the same thing - Control+Backquote and Control+Shift+Backquote (Backquote is usually the key right above the Tab key, which is why I chose it).

Using the command history

Whenever you issue a command from the console, it is saved into the command history. You can then traverse the list of your commands by hitting Up or Down in the console command line. A useful property of this feature is that if you want to find a specific command you issued, you can type its beginning and then start hitting Up - the console will then only show commands that begin with the string you've typed from the command history. For example, if you're looking for a long message you've typed to your friend, type "mess" into the console command line and hit up. Only commands starting with "mess" will be displayed.