3 ms·

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.

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/

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/