Images and video

ttyak draws pictures in the terminal — image thumbnails in messages, profile pictures, custom emoji, workspace logos — opens a picture full-window in its viewer, and plays videos with sound.

Terminals that draw pictures

Real pictures need a terminal with graphics: one that speaks kitty's protocol, sixel or iTerm2's. Other terminals get half blocks: pictures drawn with block characters. Which terminals were tried, and how each one answers, is on Requirements.

ttyak ctl check says what your terminal answered: its "pictures" row lists the ways it can draw, or "half blocks only". Run it in the terminal itself, not through a pipe.

What is drawn

• Image thumbnails in the messages (F6 → Messages & media → Show image thumbnails) — as half blocks where the terminal draws no pictures.
• Profile pictures next to names, only where the terminal draws pictures; elsewhere initials (F6 → Messages & media → Show profile pictures; Two-row profile pictures makes them bigger, beside the name and the first line).
• Custom emoji (your workspace's own picture emoji) as pictures in messages and reactions, where the terminal draws pictures; else they show as :name: (F6 → Messages & media → Custom emoji as pictures).
• Workspace logos on the rail, with two or more workspaces; else their initials (The screen).
• The profile card's picture (␣u), big on top; their initials while it loads and where the terminal draws no pictures.

Each attached file has a row under its message with an icon: 🖼️ a picture, 🎞️ a video, 🎵 audio, 📎 anything else.

How pictures are drawn

F6 → Messages & media → Draw pictures with ([messages] graphics in settings.toml): auto (the default: asked from the terminal at start), kitty, sixel, iterm2 or halfblocks. It offers only the ways the terminal said at start it can draw — auto and halfblocks always — and its help marks the others "not available in this terminal". A settings.toml naming one of those draws as auto, with a note in the status bar (the file is left as it is).

Two environment variables (all of them are on Settings):

• TTYAK_GRAPHICS (kitty, sixel, iterm2 or halfblocks) forces the way it names, for when the terminal is not asked right (over ssh or tmux) — with a warning in the log when the terminal did not report it.
• TTYAK_AVATARS=0 shows initials instead of profile pictures next to names (as on terminals without real graphics).

Opening a picture or a video

␣o on a message opens what it holds: a link, a picture, a video, a snippet. With several, a list to pick from ("In ttyak", "In the browser", "Files"). A picture opens in the viewer, with the message's other pictures a step away; a video plays in the player. A link to a file in your Slack opens the same way (Links into your Slack).

␣s saves a message's files to disk (Keys). In the composer, Ctrl+V attaches a picture from the clipboard, such as a screenshot (Keys).

The viewer

The picture fills the window, in its large version, fitted to the window. Its title has the file's name and size, and "2/3" when the message has several pictures.

Key
← / → · h / l	the previous / next picture of the message (it wraps round)
Esc · q	close

Video

Videos play in the terminal, with sound. That needs ffmpeg and ffprobe on your PATH, on every system (optional: only video, cameras and screen sharing need them; ctl check has a row for them). Without them the status line says "cannot play video: …". Cameras and screen shares in a huddle are on Huddles.

Key
Space · p	pause / play
← / → · h / l	jump 10 seconds back / forward
Esc · q	stop

If it doesn't work

• Pictures show as half blocks
• Emoji or symbols show as boxes
• Video, the camera or screen sharing doesn't work
• Requirements
• everything else: Troubleshooting