4 ms·

I like having options but wouldn’t recommend iTerm. Apple’s Terminal.app is more performant rendering text and more responsive to input while admittedly having

by tbrock 7y ago

I like having options but wouldn’t recommend iTerm. Apple’s Terminal.app is more performant rendering text and more responsive to input while admittedly having somewhat less unnecessary features. In fact, iTerm is one of the slowest terminals out there! See: https://danluu.com/term-latency/ https://danluu.com/term-latency/ iTerm used to have a lot of really compelling stuff that was missing from the official terminal like tabs, etc... that made straying away from the canonical terminal app worth it but most of them eventually made their way to Terminal.app so nowadays it’s mostly just fluff.

nullspace 7y ago
Might be a dumb question, how do you split the terminal vertically or horizontally, and hide and un-hide the split terminals on Terminal.app? Without tmux or screen. I have tried Terminal.app multiple times, but have come back to iTerm2 every time because I've not been able to figure out how to do that.
- tambourine_man 7y ago
  I can’t be done.
- tbrock 7y ago
  Cmd + D Cmd + Shift + D Or better yet, just use tmux!
  - justplay 7y ago
    only horizontal possible, i think ?
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    That just makes two panes that show the same thing.
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm not poking at iTerm, its my MacOS terminal emulator of choice. Why _not_ use tmux? It is pretty fantastic software, and IMO provides a much better interaction model. iTerm itself is even integrated w/ tmux through control mode.
  - tbrock 7y ago
    Most people do, learn tmux and you have a cross platform asset instead of a throwaway platform specific skill.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Or optimize for the platform you actually own and spend time on, and don't build BS cross platform skillsets "just in case". If at some point you move to Linux or Windows, you can learn tmux proper there. No reason to resort to lower common denominator behavior just to get a "cross platform asset".
  - nullspace 7y ago
    Hah - I probably should! I've been impressed every time I see coworkers using it. Especially suspending and unsuspending remote sessions and everything. When I'm on linux I end up using Konsole or Terminator (depending on the env) which support this functionality. So other than the saving remote sessions - which looks really cool - I've not had a strong impetus to learn tmux.
    - Skunkleton 7y ago
      Its worth learning IMO. There is a learning curve, and the default configuration is unfriendly. If you are interested here are some things I found helpful: 1) Rebind the prefix key from ctrl-b to ctrl-space. 2) Map alt-h,alt-j,alt-k,alt-l to move between window panes. 3) Remap the split keys to something more accessible. 4) Start numbering windows at 1 instead of 0 (makes switching more intuitive imo). 5) Steal a simple configuration for the status bar from the internet. Beyond that, the defaults are pretty straightforward, and you don't really need to know much to get started. I can share my config if someone is interested.
skunkworker 7y ago
Isn't that comparison dated from July of 2017? After iTerm2 added metal rendering it got much more performant.
- tbrock 7y ago
  Still not as fast as Terminal.app
  - nullstyle 7y ago
    Would you link us to current benchmarks?
    - tbrock 7y ago
      I’m not sure any more recent benchmarks exist, but try and use both and notice the difference first hand. One is clearly faster at the things that matter (text rendering and input) and yes — has less features. The reason for this is the same reason that edge/safari have better scroll+graphics perf in their native OSes over Firefox and Chrome. 1st party browsers use internal apis that MS and Apple use and don’t expose.
      - coldtea 7y ago
        >One is clearly faster at the things that matter (text rendering and input) Those things hardly matter at level of difference between the two apps... This is not like Atom and Vim speed difference, this is more like Vim vs Emacs...
    - diroussel 7y ago
      There are recent ones posted on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587488
- eddyg 7y ago
  You gotta love the "Copy Performance Stats" menu item (available in the "iTerm" menu) to help George debug any performance-related issues. Do something that you think is too slow, select that menu option, and open an issue. (Note that the only drawing that is timed is between when iTerm becomes active and when you copy the stats.) He's definitely concerned with performance.
eddyg 7y ago
Last I checked, Terminal.app doesn't support "TrueColor" (24-bit ANSI color) while iTerm2 does. Also, iTerm2 is worth it just for the "Copy to pasteboard on selection" option, as well as the corresponding ability to disable "Copied text includes trailing newline", which has saved me plenty of "crap, I didn't mean to run that!" moments.
- eridius 7y ago
  TrueColor is pretty much the only terminal feature I feel the lack of with Terminal.app, and it's a pretty minor complaint. As for pasting, what shell are you using that doesn't support paste bracketing?
- ahurmazda 7y ago
  > iTerm2 is worth it just for the "Copy to pasteboard on selection" option, The only reason I downloaded iterm2 many eons ago but stayed for the rest
gnachman 7y ago
I tried to get that latency tool running but it seems that Java's Cocoa bindings have rotted too much to work any more. I'm done with big year-long release cycles, and I plan to focus on performance and core functionality for the foreseeable future. If anyone can get that thing working please reach out :)
MagicWishMonkey 7y ago
Does Terminal.app allow you to customize it to always dock to the top of your screen?
ivolimmen 7y ago
Terminal.app also is underperfomant. I like iTerm2 but recently switched to kitty. It's the fastest (multi platform) terminal I found. I also switched under Linux to kitty and stopped using terminux.
hdra 7y ago
While it is true that iTerm is rather slow, but for me personally, the bottleneck is tmux.. And i haven't been able to wean myself out of tmux.. Ideally, I'd like to be able to have native iterm windows and panes, but with tmux keybindings..

by tbrock 7y ago

nullspace 7y ago

Might be a dumb question, how do you split the terminal vertically or horizontally, and hide and un-hide the split terminals on Terminal.app? Without tmux or screen. I have tried Terminal.app multiple times, but have come back to iTerm2 every time because I've not been able to figure out how to do that.

tambourine_man 7y ago
I can’t be done.
tbrock 7y ago
Cmd + D Cmd + Shift + D Or better yet, just use tmux!
- justplay 7y ago
  only horizontal possible, i think ?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  That just makes two panes that show the same thing.
Skunkleton 7y ago
Disclaimer: I'm not poking at iTerm, its my MacOS terminal emulator of choice. Why _not_ use tmux? It is pretty fantastic software, and IMO provides a much better interaction model. iTerm itself is even integrated w/ tmux through control mode.
- tbrock 7y ago
  Most people do, learn tmux and you have a cross platform asset instead of a throwaway platform specific skill.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Or optimize for the platform you actually own and spend time on, and don't build BS cross platform skillsets "just in case". If at some point you move to Linux or Windows, you can learn tmux proper there. No reason to resort to lower common denominator behavior just to get a "cross platform asset".
- nullspace 7y ago
  Hah - I probably should! I've been impressed every time I see coworkers using it. Especially suspending and unsuspending remote sessions and everything. When I'm on linux I end up using Konsole or Terminator (depending on the env) which support this functionality. So other than the saving remote sessions - which looks really cool - I've not had a strong impetus to learn tmux.
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    Its worth learning IMO. There is a learning curve, and the default configuration is unfriendly. If you are interested here are some things I found helpful: 1) Rebind the prefix key from ctrl-b to ctrl-space. 2) Map alt-h,alt-j,alt-k,alt-l to move between window panes. 3) Remap the split keys to something more accessible. 4) Start numbering windows at 1 instead of 0 (makes switching more intuitive imo). 5) Steal a simple configuration for the status bar from the internet. Beyond that, the defaults are pretty straightforward, and you don't really need to know much to get started. I can share my config if someone is interested.

skunkworker 7y ago

Isn't that comparison dated from July of 2017? After iTerm2 added metal rendering it got much more performant.

tbrock 7y ago
Still not as fast as Terminal.app
- nullstyle 7y ago
  Would you link us to current benchmarks?
  - tbrock 7y ago
    I’m not sure any more recent benchmarks exist, but try and use both and notice the difference first hand. One is clearly faster at the things that matter (text rendering and input) and yes — has less features. The reason for this is the same reason that edge/safari have better scroll+graphics perf in their native OSes over Firefox and Chrome. 1st party browsers use internal apis that MS and Apple use and don’t expose.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >One is clearly faster at the things that matter (text rendering and input) Those things hardly matter at level of difference between the two apps... This is not like Atom and Vim speed difference, this is more like Vim vs Emacs...
  - diroussel 7y ago
    There are recent ones posted on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587488
eddyg 7y ago
You gotta love the "Copy Performance Stats" menu item (available in the "iTerm" menu) to help George debug any performance-related issues. Do something that you think is too slow, select that menu option, and open an issue. (Note that the only drawing that is timed is between when iTerm becomes active and when you copy the stats.) He's definitely concerned with performance.

eddyg 7y ago

Last I checked, Terminal.app doesn't support "TrueColor" (24-bit ANSI color) while iTerm2 does. Also, iTerm2 is worth it just for the "Copy to pasteboard on selection" option, as well as the corresponding ability to disable "Copied text includes trailing newline", which has saved me plenty of "crap, I didn't mean to run that!" moments.

eridius 7y ago
TrueColor is pretty much the only terminal feature I feel the lack of with Terminal.app, and it's a pretty minor complaint. As for pasting, what shell are you using that doesn't support paste bracketing?
ahurmazda 7y ago
> iTerm2 is worth it just for the "Copy to pasteboard on selection" option, The only reason I downloaded iterm2 many eons ago but stayed for the rest

gnachman 7y ago

I tried to get that latency tool running but it seems that Java's Cocoa bindings have rotted too much to work any more. I'm done with big year-long release cycles, and I plan to focus on performance and core functionality for the foreseeable future. If anyone can get that thing working please reach out :)

MagicWishMonkey 7y ago

Does Terminal.app allow you to customize it to always dock to the top of your screen?

ivolimmen 7y ago

Terminal.app also is underperfomant. I like iTerm2 but recently switched to kitty. It's the fastest (multi platform) terminal I found. I also switched under Linux to kitty and stopped using terminux.

hdra 7y ago

While it is true that iTerm is rather slow, but for me personally, the bottleneck is tmux.. And i haven't been able to wean myself out of tmux.. Ideally, I'd like to be able to have native iterm windows and panes, but with tmux keybindings..