GNOME Terminal
Encyclopedia
GNOME Terminal is a terminal emulator
for the GNOME
desktop environment
written by Havoc Pennington
and others. Terminal emulators allow users to execute commands using a real UNIX
shell while remaining on their graphical desktop.
terminal emulator and provides some of the same features.
When GNOME Terminal starts, it can be configured to launch the user's default shell or run a custom command. These options can be configured per profile, allowing users to execute different commands depending on the profile. For example, some users may have one profile to launch their default shell, another profile that connects to another computer remotely through SSH
, and finally a profile that opens a GNU Screen
session.
). GNOME Terminal allows the user specify which control character or escape sequence the delete and the backspace keys should generate . Users can specify this option on a per-profile basis.
detect the location of the mouse, but some terminal applications can utilize the mouse events, such as aptitude
or vim. At this time, there is no support for touch based gestures.
In order to improve usability, all operations regarding tabs can be completed using keyboard shortcuts. By default, tabs can be created using Control + Shift + T and can be closed with Control + Shift + W. Users can move to the next tab by pressing Control + Shift + PageDown or Control + Shift + PageUp to go to the next or previous tab respectively.
This feature is only present when the user closes the application through the graphical interface. If the user attempts to quit with the exit shell command, it is the responsibility of the user's shell to confirm the exit. Although not a GNOME Terminal feature, some shells, e.g. tcsh
and bash
, offer similar functionality and will ask for confirmation if there are stopped jobs.
.
Terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
for the GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
desktop environment
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
written by Havoc Pennington
Havoc Pennington
Robert Sanford Havoc Pennington is an American computer engineer and entrepreneur.He is known in the free software community due to his work on HAL , GNOME, Metacity, GConf, and D-BUS.- Career :...
and others. Terminal emulators allow users to execute commands using a real UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
shell while remaining on their graphical desktop.
Features
GNOME Terminal emulates the xtermXterm
In computing, xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. A user can have many different invocations of xterm running at once on the same display, each of which provides independent input/output for the process running in it .xterm originated prior to the X Window System...
terminal emulator and provides some of the same features.
Profiles
GNOME Terminal supports multiple profiles. A user can create multiple profiles for his or her account. Users can then set configuration options on a per-profile basis and assign a name to each profile. The available configuration options range from different fonts, different colors, emission of the terminal bell, the behavior of scrolling, and how the terminal handles compatibility with the backspace and delete key.When GNOME Terminal starts, it can be configured to launch the user's default shell or run a custom command. These options can be configured per profile, allowing users to execute different commands depending on the profile. For example, some users may have one profile to launch their default shell, another profile that connects to another computer remotely through SSH
Secure Shell
Secure Shell is a network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client...
, and finally a profile that opens a GNU Screen
GNU Screen
GNU Screen is a software application that can be used to multiplex several virtual consoles, allowing a user to access multiple separate terminal sessions inside a single terminal window or remote terminal session...
session.
Compatibility
GNOME Terminal supports a couple of different compatibility options for interfacing with older software that depends on varying keyboard-to-ASCII assignments. In computing, there has been ambiguity between the backspace key and delete key. When the user presses the backspace key, the computer can either delete the character before the cursor, or the character at the cursor, which introduces this ambiguity (see ASCIIASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
). GNOME Terminal allows the user specify which control character or escape sequence the delete and the backspace keys should generate . Users can specify this option on a per-profile basis.
Colored text
Colored text is available in GNOME Terminal, although users may turn this feature off. GNOME Terminal supports a basic set of 16 colors, which the user can choose. Furthermore, GNOME Terminal has support for a palette of 256 colors by default. Some programs, such as vim, can use that many colors.Background
GNOME Terminal supports a wide range of background options :- Solid color. Users can specify a solid background color per profile, using any of the millions of colors available on the GNOME desktop.
- Background image. Users can also give a background image. GNOME Terminal supports most common image formats, including JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF.
- Transparent background. Users can also select any amount of transparency (ranging from fully transparent to fully opaque). If the user has the option for compositing turned on, the background will reveal the windows behind the terminal window. Otherwise, if compositing is disabled, the terminal will only be translucent with the user's desktop wallpaper. Translucent backgrounds are desired because the user can read text behind the terminal while entering commands into the command line.
Mouse events
Although GNOME Terminal is primarily a command-line interface and uses the keyboard for most input, GNOME Terminal has limited support for mouse events. GNOME Terminal can capture mouse scrolls and both left and right clicks . Presently, it cannotdetect the location of the mouse, but some terminal applications can utilize the mouse events, such as aptitude
Aptitude
An aptitude is an innate component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Aptitudes may be physical or mental...
or vim. At this time, there is no support for touch based gestures.
URL detection
GNOME Terminal parses the output and automatically detects snippets of text that appear to be URLs or email addresses . When a user points to a URL, the text is automatically underlined, indicating that the user may click. Upon clicking, the appropriate application will open to access that resource.Tabs
GNOME Terminal supports tabs . Instead of users creating multiple windows, users can create tabs. The tab bar appears on the top of the screen as buttons, which users can click to change between tabs. The intended purpose of tabs is to improve the ability with which users can organize their terminals, instead of cluttering their task bar. Similar to the profile feature, each tab can be assigned a name.In order to improve usability, all operations regarding tabs can be completed using keyboard shortcuts. By default, tabs can be created using Control + Shift + T and can be closed with Control + Shift + W. Users can move to the next tab by pressing Control + Shift + PageDown or Control + Shift + PageUp to go to the next or previous tab respectively.
Safe quit
In recent versions, when the user attempts to quit the entire graphical application, GNOME Terminal will prompt the user with a dialog box to confirm if the user truly wants to exit GNOME Terminal . This feature is intended to reduce the risk of accidentally closing a terminal window (e.g., by clicking the window's close button) with a job already running. If a job is running and the user closes the window, the job will quit and the user will have to restart the job if exiting was an accident.This feature is only present when the user closes the application through the graphical interface. If the user attempts to quit with the exit shell command, it is the responsibility of the user's shell to confirm the exit. Although not a GNOME Terminal feature, some shells, e.g. tcsh
Tcsh
tcsh is a Unix shell based on and compatible with the C shell . It is essentially the C shell with programmable command line completion, command-line editing, and a few other features.-History:...
and bash
Bash
Bash is a Unix shell written by Brian Fox for the GNU Project as a free software replacement for the Bourne shell . Released in 1989, it has been distributed widely as the shell for the GNU operating system and as the default shell on Linux, Mac OS X and Darwin...
, offer similar functionality and will ask for confirmation if there are stopped jobs.
Development
GNOME Terminal is largely based on the VTE widget. VTE, part of the GNOME project, has widgets that implement a fully functional terminal emulator. GNOME Terminal and VTE are both written in CC (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
.
Multi GNOME Terminal
Multi GNOME Terminal is a fork of the GNOME Terminal project with the goal of providing additional, more complex features. While the project is mostly inactive today, it still offers some notable features that are not present in the regular GNOME Terminal:- Windows may be split both vertically and horizontally. This feature is similar to the functionality provided by GNU screen.
- Notifications for buffers. Multi GNOME Terminal can alert the user when the buffer has been inactive or changes after a period of inactivity.
- Support for pseudo graphics, allowing for higher-resolution graphics.