5a15f7e8ad
Prevents tearing while scrolling. See #318 Reduce draw calls while processing mouse move events to make latency while selecting with the mouse acceptable. Also add a config option to turn off monitor syncing, so people with keyboard repeat rates higher than their monitor's refresh rate can use it.
507 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
507 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
= kitty - A terminal emulator
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:toc:
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:toc-placement!:
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// START_SHORTCUT_BLOCK
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:sc_close_tab: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+q`]
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:sc_close_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+w`]
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:sc_copy_to_clipboard: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+c`]
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:sc_decrease_font_size: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+minus`]
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:sc_eighth_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+8`]
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:sc_fifth_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+5`]
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:sc_first_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+1`]
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:sc_fourth_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+4`]
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:sc_increase_font_size: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+equal`]
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:sc_input_unicode_character: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+u`]
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:sc_move_tab_backward: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+,`]
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:sc_move_tab_forward: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+.`]
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:sc_move_window_backward: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+b`]
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:sc_move_window_forward: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+f`]
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:sc_move_window_to_top: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+``]
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:sc_new_os_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+n`]
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:sc_new_tab: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+t`]
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:sc_new_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+enter`]
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:sc_next_layout: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+l`]
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:sc_next_tab: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+right`]
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:sc_next_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+]`]
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:sc_ninth_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+9`]
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:sc_pass_selection_to_program: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+o`]
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:sc_paste_from_clipboard: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+v`]
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:sc_paste_from_selection: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+s` or `shift+insert`]
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:sc_previous_tab: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+left`]
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:sc_previous_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+[`]
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:sc_restore_font_size: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+backspace`]
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:sc_run_simple_kitten_text_url_hints: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+e`]
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:sc_scroll_end: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+end`]
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:sc_scroll_home: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+home`]
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:sc_scroll_line_down: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+down` or `ctrl+shift+j`]
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:sc_scroll_line_up: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+up` or `ctrl+shift+k`]
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:sc_scroll_page_down: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+page_down`]
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:sc_scroll_page_up: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+page_up`]
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:sc_second_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+2`]
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:sc_seventh_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+7`]
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:sc_show_scrollback: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+h`]
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:sc_sixth_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+6`]
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:sc_tenth_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+0`]
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:sc_third_window: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+3`]
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:sc_toggle_fullscreen: pass:quotes[`ctrl+shift+f11`]
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// END_SHORTCUT_BLOCK
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++++
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<img align="left" role="left" src="logo/kitty.png?raw=true"/>
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++++
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image::https://travis-ci.org/kovidgoyal/kitty.svg?branch=master[Build status, link=https://travis-ci.org/kovidgoyal/kitty]
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== Major Features
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* Uses OpenGL for rendering, offloads rendering to the GPU for lower system
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load and buttery smooth scrolling. Uses threaded rendering to minimize input
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latency.
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* Supports all modern terminal features: graphics (images), unicode,
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true-color, OpenType ligatures, mouse protocol, focus tracking, bracketed paste and so on.
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* Supports tiling multiple terminal windows side by side in different
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layouts without needing to use an extra program like tmux
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* Can be controlled from scripts or the shell prompt, even over SSH.
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* Supports startup sessions which allow you to specify the window/tab layout,
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working directories and programs to run on startup.
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* Cross-platform support: kitty currently works on Linux and macOS, but because
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it uses only OpenGL for rendering, it should be trivial to port to other
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platforms.
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* Allows you to open the scrollback buffer and window contents in a separate
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window using arbitrary programs of your choice. This is useful for browsing
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the history comfortably in a pager or editor and also for doing things like
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opening URLs using only the keyboard.
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image::screenshot.png?raw=true[Screenshot, showing three programs in the "Tall" layout]
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toc::[]
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== Installation
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kitty is designed to run from source, for easy hackability. Make sure
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the following dependencies are installed first.
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=== Dependencies
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* python >= 3.5
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* harfbuzz >= 1.5.0
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* zlib
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* libpng
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* freetype (not needed on macOS)
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* fontconfig (not needed on macOS)
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* ImageMagick (optional, needed to use the `kitty icat` tool to display images in the terminal)
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* gcc or clang (required only for building)
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* pkg-config (required only for building)
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* For building on Linux in addition to the above dependencies you might also need to install the `-dev` packages for `xcursor`, `xrandr`, `xinerama` and `xkbcommon-x11`, if they are not already installed by your distro.
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=== Install and run from source
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....
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git clone https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty && cd kitty
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....
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Now build the C parts of kitty with the following command:
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....
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make
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....
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You can run kitty, as:
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....
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python3 .
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....
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=== Linux packages
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* Arch Linux: AUR git package https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/kitty-git/
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* Arch Linux: AUR stable package https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/kitty/
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* NixOS / nixpkgs: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/applications/misc/kitty/default.nix
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=== macOS packages
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kitty is available as a macOS `dmg` file for easy installation from the
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link:../../releases[releases page]. You can also run kitty directly from
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source using the above install from source instructions, after installing its
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dependencies using http://brew.sh/[brew] or a similar package manager.
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== Design philosophy
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kitty is designed for power keyboard users. To that end all its controls
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work with the keyboard (although it fully supports mouse interactions as
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well). Its configuration is a simple, human editable, single file for
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easy reproducibility (I like to store config files in source control).
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The code in kitty is designed to be simple, modular and hackable. It is
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written in a mix of C (for performance sensitive parts) and Python (for
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easy hackability of the UI). It does not depend on any large and complex
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UI toolkit, using only OpenGL for rendering everything.
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Finally, kitty is designed from the ground up to support all modern
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terminal features, such as unicode, true color, bold/italic fonts, text
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formatting, etc. It even extends existing text formatting escape codes,
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to add support for features not available elsewhere, such as colored and
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styled (curly) underlines. One of the design goals of kitty is to be
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easily extensible so that new features can be added in the future with
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relatively less effort.
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== Tabs and Windows
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kitty is capable of running multiple programs organized into tabs and
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windows. The top level of organization is the _Tab_. Each tab consists
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of one or more _windows_. The windows can be arranged in multiple
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different layouts, like windows are organized in a tiling window
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manager. The keyboard controls (which are all customizable) for tabs and
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windows are:
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[[scrolling-shortcuts]]
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[options="header"]
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=== Scrolling
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|Action |Shortcut
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|Scroll line up | {sc_scroll_line_up}
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|Scroll line down | {sc_scroll_line_down}
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|Scroll page up | {sc_scroll_page_up}
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|Scroll page down | {sc_scroll_page_down}
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|Scroll to top | {sc_scroll_home}
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|Scroll to bottom | {sc_scroll_end}
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|===
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[options="header"]
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=== Tabs
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|===
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|Action |Shortcut
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|New tab | {sc_new_tab}
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|Close tab | {sc_close_tab}
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|Next tab | {sc_next_tab}
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|Previous tab | {sc_previous_tab}
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|Next layout | {sc_next_layout}
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|Move tab forward | {sc_move_tab_forward}
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|Move tab backward | {sc_move_tab_backward}
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|===
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[options="header"]
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=== Windows
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|Action |Shortcut
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|New window | {sc_new_window}
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|New OS window| {sc_new_os_window}
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|Close window | {sc_close_window}
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|Next window | {sc_next_window}
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|Previous window | {sc_previous_window}
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|Move window forward | {sc_move_window_forward}
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|Move window backward | {sc_move_window_backward}
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|Move window to top | {sc_move_window_to_top}
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|Focus specific window (windows are counted clockwise from the top left corner) | {sc_first_window}, {sc_second_window} ... {sc_tenth_window}
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|===
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=== Miscellaneous
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|Action |Shortcut
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|Increase font size | {sc_increase_font_size}
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|Decrease font size | {sc_decrease_font_size}
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|Restore font size | {sc_restore_font_size}
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|Toggle fullscreen | {sc_toggle_fullscreen}
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|Input unicode character | {sc_input_unicode_character}
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|Click URL using the keyboard | {sc_run_simple_kitten_text_url_hints}
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|Pass current selection to program | {sc_pass_selection_to_program}
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|===
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== Controlling kitty from scripts
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You can control kitty from the command line/scripts by sending it messages.
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You can tell kitty to open/close/rename tabs and windows. You can even send
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arbitrary input/text to any specified window. Messages can be sent using
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`kitty @`. Note that you must set `allow_remote_control yes` in your
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kitty.conf to use this feature. It even works over SSH connections. This
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feature is best illustrated with a link:remote-control.asciidoc[tutorial].
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== The scrollback buffer
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kitty supports scrolling back to view history, just like most terminals. You
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can use either the <<scrolling-shortcuts,keyboard shortcuts>> or the mouse
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scroll wheel to do so. However, kitty has an extra, neat feature. Sometimes
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you need to explore the scrollback buffer in more detail, maybe search for some
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text or refer to it side-by-side while typing in a follow-up command. kitty
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allows you to do this by pressing the {sc_show_scrollback} key-combination,
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which will open the scrollback buffer in your favorite pager program (which is
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`less` by default). Colors and text formatting are preserved. You can explore
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the scrollback pager comfortably within the pager.
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== Miscellaneous features
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You can double click to select a word and triple click to select a line. You can also
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hold down `ctrl+shift` and click on a URL to open it in a browser.
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== Layouts
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Currently, there are five layouts available,
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* Stack -- Only a single maximized window is shown at a time
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* Tall -- One window is shown full height on the left, the rest of the windows are shown one below the other on the right
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* Grid -- All windows are shown in a grid
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* Horizontal -- All windows are shown side-by-side
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* Vertical -- All windows are shown one below the other
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You can switch between layouts using the {sc_next_layout} key combination.
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Writing a new layout only requires about fifty lines of code, so if there is
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some layout you want, take a look at link:kitty/layout.py[layout.py] and submit
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a pull request!
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== Configuration
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kitty is highly customizable, everything from keyboard shortcuts, to
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painting frames-per-second. See the heavily commented
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link:kitty/kitty.conf[default config file]. By default kitty looks for a
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config file in the OS config directory (usually
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`~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf` on Linux and
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`~/Library/Preferences/kitty/kitty.conf` on macOS) but you can pass a specific
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path via the `--config` option.
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== Startup Sessions
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You can control the tabs, window layout, working directory, startup
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programs, etc. by creating a "session" file and using the `--session`
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command line flag. For example:
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....
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# Set the window layout for the current tab
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layout tall
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# Set the working directory for windows in the current tab
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cd ~
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# Create a window and run the specified command in it
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launch zsh
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launch vim
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# Set the title for the next window
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title Chat with x
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launch irssi --profile x
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# Create a new tab (the part after new_tab is the optional tab name which will
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# be displayed in the tab bar, if omitted, the title of the active window will
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# be used instead)
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new_tab my tab
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cd ~/somewhere
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# Set the layouts allowed in this tab
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enabled_layouts tall, stack
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# Set the current layout
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layout stack
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launch zsh
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# Make the current window the active (focused) window
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focus
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launch emacs
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....
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== Protocol Extensions
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kitty has a few extensions to the xterm protocol, to enable advanced features,
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see link:protocol-extensions.asciidoc[Protocol Extensions].
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== Font control
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kitty has extremely flexible and powerful font selection features. You can
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specify individual families for the regular, bold, italic and bold+italic
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fonts. You can even specify specific font families for specific ranges of
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unicode characters. This allows precise control over text rendering. It can
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come in handy for applications like powerline, without the need to use patched
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fonts. See the various font related configuration directives in the
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link:kitty/kitty.conf[config file].
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== Performance
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The main goals for kitty performance are user perceived latency while typing
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and "smoothness" while scrolling as well as CPU usage. kitty tries hard to find
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an optimum balance for these. To that end it keeps a cache of each rendered
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glyph in video RAM so that font rendering is not a bottleneck. Interaction
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with child programs takes place in a separate thread from rendering, to improve
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smoothness.
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There are two parameters you can tune to adjust the performance. ``repaint_delay``
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and ``input_delay``. These control the artificial delays introduced into the
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render loop to reduce CPU usage. See the link:kitty/kitty.conf[config file] for details.
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See also the ``sync_to_monitor`` option to further decrease latency at the cost
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of some link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing[tearing] while scrolling.
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You can generate detailed per-function performance data using
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link:https://github.com/gperftools/gperftools[gperftools]. Build kitty with
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`make profile` which will create an executable called `kitty-profile`. Run
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that and perform the task you want to analyse, for example, scrolling a large
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file with `less`. After you quit, function call statistics will be printed to
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`stdout` and you can use tools like *kcachegrind* for more detailed analysis.
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Here are some CPU usage numbers for the task of scrolling a file continuously in less.
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The CPU usage is for the terminal process and X together and is measured using htop.
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The measurements are taken at the same font and window size for all terminals on a
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`Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4820K CPU @ 3.70GHz` CPU with a
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`Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cape Verde XT [Radeon HD 7770/8760 / R7 250X]` GPU.
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|===
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| Terminal | CPU usage (X + terminal)
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| kitty | 6 - 8%
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| xterm | 5 - 7% (but scrolling was extremely janky)
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| termite | 10 - 13%
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| urxvt | 12 - 14%
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| gnome-terminal | 15 - 17%
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| konsole | 29 - 31%
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|===
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As you can see, kitty uses much less CPU than all terminals, except xterm, but
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its scrolling "smoothness" is much better than that of xterm (at least to my,
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admittedly biased, eyes).
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== Note for Linux/macOS packagers
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While kitty does use python, it is not a traditional python package, so please do not install it in site-packages.
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Instead run,
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```
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python3 setup.py linux-package
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```
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This will install kitty into the directory `linux-package`. You can run kitty
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with `linux-package/bin/kitty`. All the files needed to run kitty will be in
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`linux-package/lib/kitty`. The terminfo file will be installed into
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`linux-package/share/terminfo`. Simply copy these files into `/usr` to install
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kitty. In other words, `linux-package` is the staging area into which kitty is
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installed. You can choose a different staging area, by passing the `--prefix`
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argument to `setup.py`.
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You should probably split kitty into two packages, `kitty-terminfo` that
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installs the terminfo file and `kitty` that installs the main program.
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This allows users to install the terminfo file on servers into which they ssh,
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without needing to install all of kitty.
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This applies to creating packages for kitty for macOS package managers such as
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brew or MacPorts as well.
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== Frequently Asked Questions
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=== Some special symbols are rendered small/truncated in kitty?
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The number of cells a unicode character takes up are controlled by the unicode
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standard. All characters are rendered in a single cell unless the unicode
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standard says they should be rendered in two cells. When a symbol does not fit,
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it will either be rescaled to be smaller or truncated (depending on how much
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extra space it needs). This is often different from other terminals which just
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let the character overflow into neighboring cells, which is fine if the
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neighboring cell is empty, but looks terrible if it is not.
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Some programs, like powerline, vim with fancy gutter symbols/status-bar, etc.
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use unicode characters from the private use area to represent symbols. Often
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these symbols are square and should be rendered in two cells. However, since
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private use area symbols all have their width set to one in the unicode
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standard, kitty renders them either smaller or truncated. The correct solution
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for this is to use either use different symbols that are not square, or to use
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a font that defines ligatures with the space character for these symbols. See
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link:https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/182[#182] for a discussion of
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the approach using ligatures.
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=== How do I build kitty.app on macOS?
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Install `optipng` and `librsvg` using `brew` or similar (needed for the logo generation step).
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And run:
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```
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make app
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```
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This `kitty.app` unlike the released one does not include its own copy of
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python and the other dependencies. So if you ever un-install/upgrade those dependencies
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you might have to rebuild the app.
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Note that the released kitty.dmg includes all dependencies, unlike the
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`kitty.app` built above and is built automatically by using the `kitty` branch of
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link:https://github.com/kovidgoyal/build-calibre[build-calibre] however, that
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is designed to run on Linux and is not for the faint of heart.
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=== Using a color theme with a background color does not work well in vim?
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First make sure you have not changed the TERM environment variable, it should
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be `xterm-kitty`. vim uses *background color erase* even if the terminfo file
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does not contain the `bce` capability. This is a bug in vim. You can work around
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|
it by adding the following to your vimrc:
|
|
|
|
....
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|
let &t_ut=''
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|
....
|
|
|
|
See link:https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/blob/master/protocol-extensions.asciidoc#setting-text-styles-colors-in-arbitrary-regions-of-the-screen[here]
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|
for why kitty does not support background color erase.
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|
|
|
== I get errors about the terminal being unknown or opening the terminal failing when SSHing into a different computer?
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|
|
|
This happens because the kitty terminfo files are not available on the server. Either install kitty on the server,
|
|
or simply copy over the terminfo files, using:
|
|
|
|
....
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|
ssh myserver mkdir -p \~/.terminfo
|
|
infocmp xterm-kitty | ssh myserver "cat > /tmp/kitty.terminfo"
|
|
ssh myserver tic -x -o \~/.terminfo /tmp/kitty.terminfo
|
|
....
|
|
|
|
Really, the correct solution for this is to convince the OpenSSH maintainers to have ssh do this
|
|
automatically when connecting to a server.
|
|
|
|
== A tribute
|
|
|
|
While over the decades I am sure many people have contributed to the
|
|
development of the terminal emulator space, there is one individual in
|
|
particular I would like to thank. link:http://invisible-island.net[Thomas E.
|
|
Dickey], the creator of xterm. xterm is the most comprehensive and
|
|
feature-rich terminal emulator I have had the pleasure of using. As I worked on
|
|
kitty, I ran headlong into more and more gnarly corners of terminal behavior.
|
|
On all those occasions, either the excellent documentation at
|
|
link:http://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html[xterm-ctlseqs] or
|
|
investigating the behavior and code of xterm or vttest were invaluable tools to
|
|
aid my understanding.
|
|
|
|
My achievements, if any, in developing kitty would not have been possible without
|
|
his prior work and the generous sharing of knowledge accumulated over decades.
|
|
|
|
Thank you.
|
|
|
|
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|
== Resources on terminal behavior
|
|
|
|
http://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html
|
|
|
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C0_and_C1_control_codes
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|
|
|
https://vt100.net/
|