ohmyzsh/plugins/man

Man Plugin

This plugin provides a convenient shortcut to quickly view the manual (man) page for a command you've previously typed. It is especially useful when you're working in the terminal and want to look up usage details or options for a command without retyping it.

Features

• Automatically inserts man before the most recent command you've typed (or the one currently in the buffer).
• If the command includes a subcommand (e.g., git commit), the plugin attempts to open a more specific manual page like git-commit, if available.
• Smart fallback to the base command manual page if a more specific one doesn't exist.
• Works by pressing a simple keyboard shorcut: Esc then typing man.

Installation

To enable this plugin, add man to the plugins array in your .zshrc:

plugins=(... man)

Keyboard Shortcut

Shortcut	Description
Esc + man	Opens the man page for the previous or current command in the buffer

How It Works

• If no command is typed in the current buffer, the plugin uses the last command from history.
• If a command is already typed, it uses the contents of the buffer.
• If the buffer already start with man, the plguin does nothing (to avoid duplication).
• The plugin then tries to:
  • Show the manual for a combined command and subcommand (e.g., git-commit),
  • If that fails, it falls back to showing the manual for the base command (e.g., git).

For example:

> git commit
# (then press <Esc> and type `man`)
# Result: opens the man page for git-commit if it exists, otherwise git