Scratsh provides scratch buffer functionality to shell buffers in Emacs. Example shell buffers include: ansi-term and vterm.
In brief: Scratsh = scratch + shell
For now, place scratsh.el somewhere under the load-path.
Configuration variables are stored under the scratsh group and can be set by executing customize-group and selecting scratsh.
<To be written. For now, see the "public api" section of scratsh.el.>
The "command prompt" is a poor tool for editing expressions past a certain size. A better kind of tool already exists in the form of scratch buffers, such as Emacs' *scratch* buffer and Cider's *cider-scratch* buffer. Before Scratsh, there was no mechanism to use scratch buffers with shells such as bash in a fully functional terminal emulator such as ansi-term or vterm. The closest approximation to a proper scratch buffer is to 1) set a buffer to sh-mode, 2) open a shell with sh-show-shell, and then 3) use sh-execute-region or sh-send-line-or-region-and-step. but this workflow does not support key workflows such as: 1) opening a scratch buffer for an already existing shell, and 2) using commands such as less which require a "fully functional terminal".
This program considers two types of buffers: the shell buffer and the scratch buffer.
A scratch buffer is an Emacs buffer which is used to edit text and to send text to a shell. Text in a scratch buffer is edited as per usual in Emacs. Text sent to a shell using the variousscratch-send-* commands. The paradigm case of a scratch buffer is the built-in Emacs *scratch* buffer, which is used to edit Elisp commands.
A shell buffer is an Emacs buffer which is used for I/O for some subprocess. The paradigm case of a shell buffer is Emacs' ansi-term style of buffers.
A shell buffer may have at most one primary scratch buffer. The primary scratch buffer is only special in that it can be easily switched to using scratsh-switch.
A scratch buffer may be connected to exactly one shell buffer. When a scratch buffer is connected to a shell buffer B, then the various scratch-send-* commands will send text to the B for evaluation. Note that multiple scratch buffers can be connected to a common shell buffer.