Extraterm is an open source project to build a terminal emulator and expand it with new features to support modern workflows and do more than just act like a glorified teletype.
The software is billed as “The swiss army chainsaw of terminal emulators”.
Extraterm is in active development. The author considers it currently roughly ‘beta’ in quality.
Features include:
- Two modes are available:
- Normal mode – this mode acts as a traditional terminal emulator.
- Cursor mode – allows users to navigate the screen and the contents of the scrollback using a cursor as in a text editor. Command output is editable in place. Multi-cursor editing. This mode, together with frames, lets you edit text already on the screen and prepare a complex command.
- Backwards compatibility with the decades of existing terminal based applications.
- xterm compatible.
- Show images in the terminal. It works across ssh.
- Shell integration unlocks powerful features such as frames around command output, reusing command output and in-place editing of text. bash, zsh and fish shells are supported. Powerful keyboard based cursor mode. Copy and paste without having to leave the keyboard.
- Place frames around the output of commands. Frames also display the command which was executed and warns when a command has indicated failure status.
- The “from” command lets you use previous command output as input for terminal commands. This enables new fast “ad hoc” workflows. Grab the contents of a frame and use it as part of a shell command.
- Easy uploads and downloads using the shell integration, and works transparently across SSH.
- Tabs – lets you run multiple terminal sessions at the same time. With multiple tabs and panes, split and tiled any way you like. The Horizontal Split and Vertical Split commands let you split the window in half with side-by-side groups of tables. These too can be split again.
- Keyboard based selection.
- Previous command output can be used as input for new commands.
- Command Palette makes it easy to find and execute any command without leaving the keyboard. It shows where all relevant commands can be viewed, searched, and executed.
- Text zoom.
- Unicode support.
- Color emoji.
- Tips – helps you learn some of the features of the application.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux, macOS, Windows (using Cygwin).
Website: extraterm.org
Support: Documentation, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Simon Edwards
License: MIT License
Extraterm is built on the following technologies:
- Electron – a platform for running desktop applications made using web technologies.
- TypeScript – superset of JavaScript which adds static typing.
- CodeMirror – text editor component which is used extensively to show terminal output and provide cursor based selections and editing.
- term.js – Terminal emulator component, pulled into the Extraterm code base and heavily modified.
- ptyw.js – PTY support for node.js.
- … plus many other smaller libraries.
Extraterm is written in TypeScript. Learn TypeScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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