After a long break (literally) ROXTerm is making a comeback on github. Its original home was on Sourceforge.
ROXTerm is a terminal emulator intended to provide similar features to gnome-terminal, based on the same VTE library. It was originally designed to have a smaller footprint and quicker start-up time by not using the Gnome libraries and by using a separate applet to provide the configuration GUI, but thanks to all the features it's acquired over the years ROXTerm can probably now be accused of bloat. However, it is more configurable than gnome-terminal and aimed more at "power" users who make heavy use of terminals.
It still supports the ROX desktop application layout it was named after, but can also be installed in a more conventional manner for use in other desktop environments.
The Debian changelog provides a good summary of what's changed between versions.
Version 3.15.1 onwards apply a CSS class name to ROXTerm's vte widget, based on the profile name. For example, a profile name of "My Profile" applies the CSS class name "roxterm-My-Profile". Use with care, because using different values of properties such as "padding" in the same window could cause problems with window geometry.
OSC 52 is an escape sequence that allows programs in the terminal to access the desktop's clipboard. This is now supported in ROXTerm, with some security measures:
- Apps can only write the clipboard, not read it.
- You have to confirm each clipboard write unless you change a profile setting.
- OSC 52 is ignored if the originating terminal is not focused.
- OSC 52 is ignored if the terminal has a selection made with its GUI.
Each time the clipboard is written, an indicator flashes in the tab bar, then stays visible until cleared by clicking it or by performing a copy operation in ROXTerm's GUI.
ROXTerm has to resort to intercepting read operations on the pty device, because VTE doesn't provide support for this OSC. ROXTerm does not intercept terminfo/termcap sequences to indicate that it supports OSC 52, so you may need to take extra steps to enable it in some apps, for example in neovim:
if vim.env.SSH_TTY then
local function paste()
return {
vim.fn.split(vim.fn.getreg(""), "\n"),
vim.fn.getregtype(""),
}
end
vim.g.clipboard = {
name = "OSC 52",
copy = {
["+"] = require("vim.ui.clipboard.osc52").copy("+"),
["*"] = require("vim.ui.clipboard.osc52").copy("*"),
},
paste = {
["+"] = paste,
["*"] = paste,
},
}
end
Recent versions of ROXTerm, in conjunction with recent versions of vte, support kinetic scrolling with libinput, which considerably improves the UX on laptops for users of Wayland, and for xorg users who can't or prefer not to use the deprecated synaptics driver. ROXTerm can detect whether the feature is supported in vte at run-time, so no re-compilation is necessary if you upgrade from an older vte.
Tempus Themes should have support for roxterm by the time you read this. If not, you can use convert-tempus.