PixelTerm-C is a high-performance terminal image browser written in C, based on the Chafa library.
PixelTerm-C is a C implementation of the original PixelTerm application, designed to provide significantly better performance than the Python version while maintaining all the same functionality.
By leveraging the Chafa library directly instead of using subprocess calls, we eliminate the overhead of Python interpretation and external process creation.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Multi-format Support – Supports JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, WebP, TIFF and other mainstream image formats.
- Animated GIF Support – Play animated GIFs directly in the terminal with proper timing and high-quality rendering.
- TrueColor Rendering – Full 24-bit color support with automatic detection and optimization.
- Smart Browsing – Automatically detects image files in directories with directory navigation support.
- Keyboard Navigation – Switch between images with arrow keys, supporting various terminal environments.
- Adaptive Display – Automatically adapts to terminal size changes.
- Minimal Interface – No redundant information, focused on image browsing experience.
- High Performance – 5-10x faster than Python version with significantly lower memory usage.
- Circular Navigation – Seamless browsing with wrap-around between first and last images.
- Multi-architecture Support – Native support for both amd64 and aarch64 (ARM64) architectures.
- Mouse Support – Intuitive mouse navigation, selection, and scrolling across all modes.
- Preloading – Image preloading for faster navigation (enabled by default).
- Dithering – Improves visual quality in color-limited terminals (disabled by default).
Website: github.com/zouyonghe/PixelTerm-C
Support:
Developer: zouyonghe
License: GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0
PixelTerm-C is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Image Viewers | |
|---|---|
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| PixelTerm-C | High-performance terminal image browser written in C |
| pho | Lightweight image viewer |
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| imv | X11/Wayland image viewer |
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| rsimg | Uses crossterm and zune as dependencies |
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| imgcat | Displays images and gifs in your terminal emulator. |
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