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What missing features do you see as a roadblock? I installed iTerm2 on my work Mac because it came so highly recommended, but I honestly never remember to open

What missing features do you see as a roadblock? I installed iTerm2 on my work Mac because it came so highly recommended, but I honestly never remember to open it over the regular terminal. ~All of the features that matter to me in a terminal are features of the shell and the OS, not of the emulator itself.

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
Quake mode. Terminal doesn't have it, and the recently released Ghostty's quake mode is slower than iTerm2. There's very little I want in a terminal emulator. What I really want is a full screen terminal, with no menu bar, no delay, and no animations, which I can toggle with a global hotkey.
- eadmund 2y ago
  It strikes me as a little odd for the terminal rather than the desktop environment within which it runs to implement the hotkey (or, as you call it, ‘Quake mode’). I just have my tiling window manager configured with a keybinding to raise my terminal. No menu bar, no delay, no animation, just type the keybinding and bam, there’s my console, covering the complete screen. Another keybinding, and there’s my browser. Another keybinding, and there’s my editor.
  - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
    How are you achieving this in MacOS?
    - mattbaker 2y ago
      I do something similar and I use Hammerspoon (with kitty in my case). It’s a hell of a tool!
    - kiliankoe 2y ago
      I do this using Raycast, no matter which terminal emulator I'm using today (Terminal, Ghostty or Alacritty), I can just setup my global hotkey in Raycast and get the same "quake mode" everywhere.
      - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
        Does the terminal appear instantly, and obscure everything else? By default, the way MacOS does full-screen windows is by moving them to a space. Switching between the terminal and another application, e.g., Chrome, causes a large sliding animation between applications, which I absolutely do not want.
        kiliankoe 2y ago
        Oh I don't have it fullscreen, sorry, it usually covers the bottom half or bottom-left corner (depending on screen size). There it appears and disappears instantly.
    - eadmund 2y ago
      > How are you achieving this in MacOS? I don’t — I use Linux on my desktop. I stopped using macOS back when it was called System 8 or 9! I think any tiling window manager can be configured to do this, but in my case I use StumpWM. (defcommand terminal () () (run-or-raise "urxvt" '(:instance "urxvt"))) (define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-t") "terminal") With the above, when one types Super t then the terminal either is raised to the top, or starts (and runs on top). From others’ comments, I think that this is probably possible with a modern Mac, too, but I find that Linux is generally easier. StumpWM: https://stumpwm.github.io/ https://stumpwm.github.io/
      - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
        That sounds great, but I'm not changing my entire operating system just so I can have a possibly marginally better terminal emulation experience.
        eadmund 2y ago
        You would also get a better window manager, better compatibility with server operating systems, a bash updated this decade, XCompose (think the Option key, but way, way, way more powerful) and more freedom, but on the other hand you’d lose macOS-only programs, and from time to time would have to deal with something truly frustrating which would never be an issue on a Mac. It’s certainly not perfect, but I do prefer it. But then, I enjoy yak shaving grin
        yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
        > I enjoy yak shaving As my username would suggest, so do I. However… > a better window manager The bulk of my workflow involves Chrome and tmux inside my always available full screen terminal. I haven't the need for multiplexing anywhere except the terminal. > better compatibility with server operating systems I run nix-darwin on MacOS, and I have remote NixOS machines configured as build hosts. This is important, as everything I write is Haskell, and it must be compiled for x86_64-linux. > a bash updated this decade I use zsh and the bash available in the latest nixpkgs. --- MacOS does an excellent job of managing all the other quality of life stuff that doesn't immediately concern me as a power user. A number of my current and former colleagues are all in on NixOS, but the number of times over the years I've had to wait at the beginning of a video chat for them to configure their audio settings, which sometimes means installing different drivers and/or turning their machine off and on again… Yeah. Even as a huge nerd, I think MacOS is great.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      Another option is rcmd. https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/ https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/
pama 2y ago
Iterm is better documented. Try finding how to pass Ctrl-Meta-key; better yet, throw in a shift as well. Setting up 24bit color, supporting italics, and allowing Emacs keystrokes to go through to the remote server at will is a quality of life improvement. I managed to be feature complete with iterm on macOS with minimal effort, but not with the default terminal, and there was no source code I could check to help me avoid trivial annoyances. Xterm/rxvt from xQuartz on Mac OS are easier to work with than the default Mac OS terminal, and feel closer to their behavior in Linux, but then you have some unneeded X window features and miss other trivial automation features like multiple tabs.
- eptcyka 2y ago
  iTerm2 is slower. It feels way jankier with nvim than Console, kitty or literally anything else. I do not believe anyone should be using iterm2, given their history of security issues. All of them leave me scratching my head as to why did anyone think that designing it the way they did is a good idea.
  - dangus 2y ago
    The idea that iTerm is noticeably slow is hilarious. If you buy a base model grandma level MacBook Air it can play Cyberpunk 2077 without breaking a sweat and somehow terminal performance is an issue. And if all I cared about was raw performance I’d be using vim instead of VSCode. But raw performance isn’t what makes me productive.
    - eptcyka 2y ago
      But it is. Scrolling in neovim is noticably slower on iTerm2. This makes it cumbersome to use. Even if it doesn't prevent me from inputting the keystrokes any faster, if it is cumbersome to use, it will make me work slower.
      - dangus 2y ago
        An entire thread of neovim users generally saying that the performance is acceptable: https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/s/JOQL9e76fp https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/s/JOQL9e76fp Just because something else is faster doesn’t mean that iTerm is slow. It’s all relative.

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago

Quake mode. Terminal doesn't have it, and the recently released Ghostty's quake mode is slower than iTerm2. There's very little I want in a terminal emulator. What I really want is a full screen terminal, with no menu bar, no delay, and no animations, which I can toggle with a global hotkey.

eadmund 2y ago
It strikes me as a little odd for the terminal rather than the desktop environment within which it runs to implement the hotkey (or, as you call it, ‘Quake mode’). I just have my tiling window manager configured with a keybinding to raise my terminal. No menu bar, no delay, no animation, just type the keybinding and bam, there’s my console, covering the complete screen. Another keybinding, and there’s my browser. Another keybinding, and there’s my editor.
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
  How are you achieving this in MacOS?
  - mattbaker 2y ago
    I do something similar and I use Hammerspoon (with kitty in my case). It’s a hell of a tool!
  - kiliankoe 2y ago
    I do this using Raycast, no matter which terminal emulator I'm using today (Terminal, Ghostty or Alacritty), I can just setup my global hotkey in Raycast and get the same "quake mode" everywhere.
    - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
      Does the terminal appear instantly, and obscure everything else? By default, the way MacOS does full-screen windows is by moving them to a space. Switching between the terminal and another application, e.g., Chrome, causes a large sliding animation between applications, which I absolutely do not want.
      - kiliankoe 2y ago
        Oh I don't have it fullscreen, sorry, it usually covers the bottom half or bottom-left corner (depending on screen size). There it appears and disappears instantly.
  - eadmund 2y ago
    > How are you achieving this in MacOS? I don’t — I use Linux on my desktop. I stopped using macOS back when it was called System 8 or 9! I think any tiling window manager can be configured to do this, but in my case I use StumpWM. (defcommand terminal () () (run-or-raise "urxvt" '(:instance "urxvt"))) (define-key *top-map* (kbd "s-t") "terminal") With the above, when one types Super t then the terminal either is raised to the top, or starts (and runs on top). From others’ comments, I think that this is probably possible with a modern Mac, too, but I find that Linux is generally easier. StumpWM: https://stumpwm.github.io/ https://stumpwm.github.io/
    - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
      That sounds great, but I'm not changing my entire operating system just so I can have a possibly marginally better terminal emulation experience.
      - eadmund 2y ago
        You would also get a better window manager, better compatibility with server operating systems, a bash updated this decade, XCompose (think the Option key, but way, way, way more powerful) and more freedom, but on the other hand you’d lose macOS-only programs, and from time to time would have to deal with something truly frustrating which would never be an issue on a Mac. It’s certainly not perfect, but I do prefer it. But then, I enjoy yak shaving grin
        yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
        > I enjoy yak shaving As my username would suggest, so do I. However… > a better window manager The bulk of my workflow involves Chrome and tmux inside my always available full screen terminal. I haven't the need for multiplexing anywhere except the terminal. > better compatibility with server operating systems I run nix-darwin on MacOS, and I have remote NixOS machines configured as build hosts. This is important, as everything I write is Haskell, and it must be compiled for x86_64-linux. > a bash updated this decade I use zsh and the bash available in the latest nixpkgs. --- MacOS does an excellent job of managing all the other quality of life stuff that doesn't immediately concern me as a power user. A number of my current and former colleagues are all in on NixOS, but the number of times over the years I've had to wait at the beginning of a video chat for them to configure their audio settings, which sometimes means installing different drivers and/or turning their machine off and on again… Yeah. Even as a huge nerd, I think MacOS is great.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    Another option is rcmd. https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/ https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/

pama 2y ago

Iterm is better documented. Try finding how to pass Ctrl-Meta-key; better yet, throw in a shift as well. Setting up 24bit color, supporting italics, and allowing Emacs keystrokes to go through to the remote server at will is a quality of life improvement. I managed to be feature complete with iterm on macOS with minimal effort, but not with the default terminal, and there was no source code I could check to help me avoid trivial annoyances. Xterm/rxvt from xQuartz on Mac OS are easier to work with than the default Mac OS terminal, and feel closer to their behavior in Linux, but then you have some unneeded X window features and miss other trivial automation features like multiple tabs.

eptcyka 2y ago
iTerm2 is slower. It feels way jankier with nvim than Console, kitty or literally anything else. I do not believe anyone should be using iterm2, given their history of security issues. All of them leave me scratching my head as to why did anyone think that designing it the way they did is a good idea.
- dangus 2y ago
  The idea that iTerm is noticeably slow is hilarious. If you buy a base model grandma level MacBook Air it can play Cyberpunk 2077 without breaking a sweat and somehow terminal performance is an issue. And if all I cared about was raw performance I’d be using vim instead of VSCode. But raw performance isn’t what makes me productive.
  - eptcyka 2y ago
    But it is. Scrolling in neovim is noticably slower on iTerm2. This makes it cumbersome to use. Even if it doesn't prevent me from inputting the keystrokes any faster, if it is cumbersome to use, it will make me work slower.
    - dangus 2y ago
      An entire thread of neovim users generally saying that the performance is acceptable: https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/s/JOQL9e76fp https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/s/JOQL9e76fp Just because something else is faster doesn’t mean that iTerm is slow. It’s all relative.