Tide

Tide Terminal

A GPU-accelerated, multi-tab terminal emulator with a pure-Python internal shell — no external $SHELL required.

• Launch: python3 apps/Tide/main.py or Ctrl+Alt+T
• Memory target: ~25 MB
• UI: PySide6

Overview

Tide is Nautilus' terminal. Unlike typical terminal apps, its shell is InternalShell (apps/Tide/shell.py) — a pure-Python shell with no dependency on /bin/bash or any external process. That makes it fully self-contained and predictable on the Pi.

Features

• InternalShell — tokenizer handling quotes/escapes, && || ; | < > >> pipes and redirections, $VAR and ~ expansion, 30 built-ins, and direct external processes (Popen, shell=False, streaming). Supports request_abort for Ctrl+C.
• Multi-tab — closable, movable tabs; the tab title tracks the current directory.
• Non-blocking — each session runs a CommandWorker (QThread) around a shared InternalShell, so long commands never freeze the UI.
• Styled output — distinct styling for stdout, stderr, system messages, dim text, and accents.
• History — Up/Down recall per session via the shell.

Shortcuts

Keys	Action
Ctrl+T	New tab
Ctrl+W	Close tab
Ctrl+C	Interrupt (via request_abort)
Ctrl+L	Clear
Ctrl+Tab	Cycle tabs
Up / Down	Command history

Notes

Because Tide spawns its own processes directly rather than through a parent shell, the launcher's process-group isolation is critical — Tide sessions are tracked and torn down as part of the app's process group.