Zterm (pronounced Zed-Term
) is a simple terminal emulator using Vte and Gtk+
written using the Zig programming language. Some useful
features of Zterm are:
- Multiple terminals can be open in tabs and panes within a single tab
- Configurable keybindings
- Comprehensive theming options
- Control over colors used
- Choice of backgrounds - solid color, transparent, image or gradient
- Simple and small graphical interface taking up less screen space than other similarly functional terminals
- Arch Linux and derivatives - Zterm is in the aur
- FreeBSD - A binary tarball is provided for the latest release of FreeBSD (at the time of release) on the releases page over at codeberg Other Linux distros or operating systems will have to build from source, see building.
You will need the Zig compiler, version 0.9.0, available from ziglang.org. You will also need the Gtk-3.x and vte libraries plus development headers installed on your system.
Zterm can be built using the Zigmod package manager for Zig.
zigmod ci
zig build -Drelease-safe=true
This will place the executable in zig-out/bin
and the icon and .desktop file in
the appropriate subdirectories of zig-out/share
. To Install somewhere else, one
can simple set the prefix
like so.
zig build -Drelease-safe=true --prefix /some/directory
The data directory can also be adjusted if necessary. For instance, if one wanted
to install Zterm in their home directory, with the executable in ~/bin
and
the data files in ~/.local/share
, it can be done like so.
zig build -Drelease-safe=true --prefix $HOME -Ddatadir=".local/share"
Assuming one has ~/bin
in their $PATH
, this should be sufficent to add a menu
entry and icon in most modern Unix
desktop environments, without needing root
permissions.
The following table gives the default keybindings. If any customization is desired, see configuration
Shortcut | Action |
---|---|
Ctrl/Shift/T | New Tab |
Ctrl/Shift/Enter | New Pane |
Alt/R | Change Pane Orientation |
Alt/[1-9] | Goto [num] Tab |
Alt/UpArrow | Previous Tab |
Ctrl/PageUp | Previous Tab |
Alt/DownArrow | Next Tab |
Ctrl/PageDown | Next Tab |
Alt/RightArrow | Next Pane |
Alt/LeftArrow | Previous Pane |
Ctrl/Shift/Q | Quit |
Usage: zterm [-h] [-e <COMMAND>] [-t <TITLE>] [-w <DIR>]
Flags:
-h, --help Display this help and exit.
-e, --command <COMMAND> Command and args to execute.
-t, --title <TITLE> Defines the window title.
-w, --working-directory <DIR> Set the terminal's working directory.
Zterm uses the nestedtext human readable
data format to store it's configuration. The main program options may be edited
with the preferences
dialog without editing any files. However, at this time the
only way to change the default keybindings is by editing the file
~/.config/zterm/keys.nt
. The file will be auto-generated if it does not exist.
All configuration options set via the preferences
dialog will take effect
immediately. Any changes to the keys.nt
file will require a restart to take
effect.
- Preferences dialog
- Remove most color handling code and replace with
zig-color
color library - Finish implementing all preferences
- Background image
- Background gradient
- Expose charset settings
- User editable keybindings
- Dialog to set keybindings
- Set tab title based on running program / current directory
- change from GtkBox widget to more flexible GtkPaned
- change build to utilize only zig build system