6 ms·

Show HN: Horizon – GPU-accelerated infinite-canvas terminal in Rust

84 points by petersunde 7mo ago

Tabs, splits, and tmux work fine until you have several projects open with logs, tests, and long-running shells. I kept rebuilding context instead of resuming work. Horizon puts shells on an infinite canvas. You can arrange them into workspaces and reopen later with layout, scrollback, and history intact. Built in 3 days with Claude/Codex, dogfooding the workflow as I went. Feedback and contributions welcome.

tekacs 7mo ago
This is fun! I switched to https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux for a while, but had to switch back to Ghostty due to its unreliability, high memory and CPU usage and a bunch of bugs. This makes a lot of sense, but... it'd be great to allow pulling out of a canvas into a second canvas for those of us with multiple screens (you at least end up needing one window per screen). In general it feels like... more structure rather than less feels like it'd be the smoothest experience. I'll play with your Ctrl+K shortcut and see if it ends up feeling like I can get everywhere that I need quickly. But... nice work! Note for jj users like me: you need to `git lfs pull` if you want to `cargo run --release`! Update: No luck creating any 'shell' workspaces (it looks like you use GNU-only flags to script) – I'll push a fix once I find it. Also: the AGENTS.md is wrong JFYI - it points to portable-pty, when this is using alacritty_terminal's tty (on rustix-openpty)
- petersunde 7mo ago
  Thanks for trying it! I totally forgot about multiple screens because I use multiple workspaces on an 8K screen. Splitting across multiple screens shouldn’t be too difficult since Horizon already supports multiple sessions. I’ll try to get it working tomorrow :)
  - cyanydeez 7mo ago
    I prefer Terminator, where splitting screens is much easier work flow.
    - xiconfjs 7mo ago
      This is the only reason I stick to Terminator, but none of the othet terminal emulators are coming close. I wouldn‘t even be searching for an alternative if Terminator wouldn‘t crash every other week.
      - cyanydeez 7mo ago
        I've not had any real crashes; but I have to swap between linux and windows, so anything that bridges that gap would get my vote.
  - petersunde 7mo ago
    Splitting across multiple screens support just landed: https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/32 https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/32
cadamsdotcom 7mo ago
Maybe I’m old but this sounds like MDI (multiple-document interface) of the late 90s. Went the way of the dodo probably because it’s hard for non power users to grok. But this is a power user tool - seeems like a fit!
- bigfishrunning 7mo ago
  I think MDI style interfaces went out of fashion because there were a lot of programs that implemented an entire window manager and then only really needed one window. This added a ton of complexity that wasn't needed most of the time, because window management is really a job for a different program.
  - cadamsdotcom 7mo ago
    You’re getting it ;)
fritzo 7mo ago
I was hoping this would be an infinite length terminal view, like the opening backstory in Star Wars
ms_menardi 7mo ago
This is great! Two things I noticed immediately: the settings window overlaps with the minimap. I think it'd be neat if you could zoom? The reason I'd use this over a tiling window manager is to fit more terminals on a screen at once. I think if there was a capability like the Strategic Zoom in Supreme Commander (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJY7exr9KU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJY7exr9KU) it would be much easier to manage many terminals at once, and take advantage of the infinite canvas.
- petersunde 7mo ago
  Thanks for letting me know about the settings/minimap overlap, I’ll fix that. And yes, zoom is on the list! I’ll implement it tomorrow. Just wanted to get the core working first without hogging the CPU.
  - petersunde 7mo ago
    Zoom support just landed: https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/27 https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/27
- MrDrMcCoy 7mo ago
  SupCom Zoom was the single greatest UX improvement to strategy games, and it's sad that nothing outside of the TA family picked it up. BAR and TA Escalation of course have it, and are among my favorites across the entire genre.
cedws 7mo ago
Spatial memory is really underutilised in computing. When libghostty[0] releases maybe you could use that so you don't have to build everything from scratch. [0]: https://mitchellh.com/writing/libghostty-is-coming https://mitchellh.com/writing/libghostty-is-coming
- tekacs 7mo ago
  libghostty already powers quite a few alternate terminals: https://github.com/Uzaaft/awesome-libghostty https://github.com/Uzaaft/awesome-libghostty This project uses alacritty-terminal, so it's also very much 'not from scratch', just using a Rust library to that effect.
- petersunde 7mo ago
  libghostty looks really promising! I went with Alacritty as the terminal backend because its core is written in pure rust.
sakopov 7mo ago
Will there be any built releases available?
- petersunde 7mo ago
  Yes, though it’s still early days. You can install it from crates.io with cargo install horizon-ui or grab a prebuilt binary from https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/untagged-0e651505ec8dd5e6dc90 https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/untagged-0e65... Each commit to main also produces downloadable unsigned binaries in the GitHub Actions tab.
- petersunde 6mo ago
  v0.2.0 binaries just landed: https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/v0.2.0 https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/v0.2.0
jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
Feels very Niri like, in a positive way. Niri's "scrollable" interface always has room to the right & down! One of the Niri tools I built for myself is to let me insert a new row up top, to expand up. Thats afaik not super easy in base Niri, constraints the spatial growth some. I'm pretty close to having some persistence of terminal windows, tmux, etc in Niri, with some tools to dump current state nicely. Doing an actual restore operation would be a good thing to build towards.
hokkos 7mo ago
The last thing I want is the figma experience for my terminal
- antonvs 7mo ago
  Right?
phrmendes 7mo ago
Just use Tmux
riquito 7mo ago
I love these kind of projects trying out non mainstream approaches! Thanks for sharing
iknowstuff 7mo ago
Hmm I guess I’d like my terminal to remember my shell sessions like that and just lef me open them in multiple windows so I can use my window manager to arrange as I please. And then I’d like my window manager to be infinitely scrollable like a canvas with like 3 fingers on my touchpad. Do any exist like that?
- firegodjr 7mo ago
  Niri is fantastic for that! Pretty barebones though, I recommend grabbing Noctalia Shell to run alongside
tamimio 7mo ago
Amazing, I will give it a try! I played with egui before, I really enjoyed it, but I remember I stumbled across some issues had to use dioxus instead.
skeledrew 7mo ago
I've been hurting for something like this for a while now. Many tmux windows soon become unwieldy to switch among, same as having a bunch of terminal tabs, and I have an unhealthy mix of both. Hopefully this scratches the itch.
rcarmo 7mo ago
Very nice. I tried to solve this with https://github.com/rcarmo/webterm https://github.com/rcarmo/webterm but without the fancy visuals (although mine works inside the Oculus Quest if you’re so inclined :))
ogborstad 7mo ago
Love it!
derodero24 7mo ago
[flagged]
- petersunde 7mo ago
  [dead]
amadeuspagel 7mo ago
This is really an infinite canvas window manager, but only for terminal windows. I looked for a general infinite canvas window manager and discovered InfiniteGlass[1]. I wasn't able to install it though, even on Ubuntu Mate 18.04, which the installation instructions are supposed to be tested for. I've switched to KDE recently, using its default terminal, and I feel like I can't miss things like opening the file browser from the terminal or vice versa anymore, so now what I really want is an infinite canvas desktop environment. [1]: https://redhog.github.io/InfiniteGlass/ https://redhog.github.io/InfiniteGlass/

84 points by petersunde 7mo ago

tekacs 7mo ago

This is fun! I switched to https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux https://github.com/manaflow-ai/cmux for a while, but had to switch back to Ghostty due to its unreliability, high memory and CPU usage and a bunch of bugs. This makes a lot of sense, but... it'd be great to allow pulling out of a canvas into a second canvas for those of us with multiple screens (you at least end up needing one window per screen). In general it feels like... more structure rather than less feels like it'd be the smoothest experience. I'll play with your Ctrl+K shortcut and see if it ends up feeling like I can get everywhere that I need quickly. But... nice work! Note for jj users like me: you need to `git lfs pull` if you want to `cargo run --release`! Update: No luck creating any 'shell' workspaces (it looks like you use GNU-only flags to script) – I'll push a fix once I find it. Also: the AGENTS.md is wrong JFYI - it points to portable-pty, when this is using alacritty_terminal's tty (on rustix-openpty)

petersunde 7mo ago
Thanks for trying it! I totally forgot about multiple screens because I use multiple workspaces on an 8K screen. Splitting across multiple screens shouldn’t be too difficult since Horizon already supports multiple sessions. I’ll try to get it working tomorrow :)
- cyanydeez 7mo ago
  I prefer Terminator, where splitting screens is much easier work flow.
  - xiconfjs 7mo ago
    This is the only reason I stick to Terminator, but none of the othet terminal emulators are coming close. I wouldn‘t even be searching for an alternative if Terminator wouldn‘t crash every other week.
    - cyanydeez 7mo ago
      I've not had any real crashes; but I have to swap between linux and windows, so anything that bridges that gap would get my vote.
- petersunde 7mo ago
  Splitting across multiple screens support just landed: https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/32 https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/32

cadamsdotcom 7mo ago

Maybe I’m old but this sounds like MDI (multiple-document interface) of the late 90s. Went the way of the dodo probably because it’s hard for non power users to grok. But this is a power user tool - seeems like a fit!

bigfishrunning 7mo ago
I think MDI style interfaces went out of fashion because there were a lot of programs that implemented an entire window manager and then only really needed one window. This added a ton of complexity that wasn't needed most of the time, because window management is really a job for a different program.
- cadamsdotcom 7mo ago
  You’re getting it ;)

fritzo 7mo ago

I was hoping this would be an infinite length terminal view, like the opening backstory in Star Wars

ms_menardi 7mo ago

This is great! Two things I noticed immediately: the settings window overlaps with the minimap. I think it'd be neat if you could zoom? The reason I'd use this over a tiling window manager is to fit more terminals on a screen at once. I think if there was a capability like the Strategic Zoom in Supreme Commander (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJY7exr9KU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJY7exr9KU) it would be much easier to manage many terminals at once, and take advantage of the infinite canvas.

petersunde 7mo ago
Thanks for letting me know about the settings/minimap overlap, I’ll fix that. And yes, zoom is on the list! I’ll implement it tomorrow. Just wanted to get the core working first without hogging the CPU.
- petersunde 7mo ago
  Zoom support just landed: https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/27 https://github.com/peters/horizon/pull/27
MrDrMcCoy 7mo ago
SupCom Zoom was the single greatest UX improvement to strategy games, and it's sad that nothing outside of the TA family picked it up. BAR and TA Escalation of course have it, and are among my favorites across the entire genre.

cedws 7mo ago

Spatial memory is really underutilised in computing. When libghostty[0] releases maybe you could use that so you don't have to build everything from scratch. [0]: https://mitchellh.com/writing/libghostty-is-coming https://mitchellh.com/writing/libghostty-is-coming

tekacs 7mo ago
libghostty already powers quite a few alternate terminals: https://github.com/Uzaaft/awesome-libghostty https://github.com/Uzaaft/awesome-libghostty This project uses alacritty-terminal, so it's also very much 'not from scratch', just using a Rust library to that effect.
petersunde 7mo ago
libghostty looks really promising! I went with Alacritty as the terminal backend because its core is written in pure rust.

sakopov 7mo ago

Will there be any built releases available?

petersunde 7mo ago
Yes, though it’s still early days. You can install it from crates.io with cargo install horizon-ui or grab a prebuilt binary from https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/untagged-0e651505ec8dd5e6dc90 https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/untagged-0e65... Each commit to main also produces downloadable unsigned binaries in the GitHub Actions tab.
petersunde 6mo ago
v0.2.0 binaries just landed: https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/v0.2.0 https://github.com/peters/horizon/releases/tag/v0.2.0

jauntywundrkind 7mo ago

Feels very Niri like, in a positive way. Niri's "scrollable" interface always has room to the right & down! One of the Niri tools I built for myself is to let me insert a new row up top, to expand up. Thats afaik not super easy in base Niri, constraints the spatial growth some. I'm pretty close to having some persistence of terminal windows, tmux, etc in Niri, with some tools to dump current state nicely. Doing an actual restore operation would be a good thing to build towards.

hokkos 7mo ago

The last thing I want is the figma experience for my terminal

antonvs 7mo ago
Right?

phrmendes 7mo ago

Just use Tmux

riquito 7mo ago

I love these kind of projects trying out non mainstream approaches! Thanks for sharing

iknowstuff 7mo ago

Hmm I guess I’d like my terminal to remember my shell sessions like that and just lef me open them in multiple windows so I can use my window manager to arrange as I please. And then I’d like my window manager to be infinitely scrollable like a canvas with like 3 fingers on my touchpad. Do any exist like that?

firegodjr 7mo ago
Niri is fantastic for that! Pretty barebones though, I recommend grabbing Noctalia Shell to run alongside

tamimio 7mo ago

Amazing, I will give it a try! I played with egui before, I really enjoyed it, but I remember I stumbled across some issues had to use dioxus instead.

skeledrew 7mo ago

I've been hurting for something like this for a while now. Many tmux windows soon become unwieldy to switch among, same as having a bunch of terminal tabs, and I have an unhealthy mix of both. Hopefully this scratches the itch.

rcarmo 7mo ago

Very nice. I tried to solve this with https://github.com/rcarmo/webterm https://github.com/rcarmo/webterm but without the fancy visuals (although mine works inside the Oculus Quest if you’re so inclined :))

ogborstad 7mo ago

Love it!

derodero24 7mo ago

[flagged]

petersunde 7mo ago
[dead]

amadeuspagel 7mo ago

This is really an infinite canvas window manager, but only for terminal windows. I looked for a general infinite canvas window manager and discovered InfiniteGlass[1]. I wasn't able to install it though, even on Ubuntu Mate 18.04, which the installation instructions are supposed to be tested for. I've switched to KDE recently, using its default terminal, and I feel like I can't miss things like opening the file browser from the terminal or vice versa anymore, so now what I really want is an infinite canvas desktop environment. [1]: https://redhog.github.io/InfiniteGlass/ https://redhog.github.io/InfiniteGlass/