Terminal

A clean, native terminal emulator for Linux, built with CreamUI. The executable is dterm; the desktop name is Terminal.

• One clean title for a single session; compact, closable tabs appear when you open another. Tabs can use an automatic shell/CWD title or a manual name.
• Split a tab horizontally or vertically, select and resize panes, and optionally broadcast keyboard input to every pane in the tab.
• UTF-8, ANSI/256/truecolor text, cursor addressing, alternate screen, configurable scrollback, text selection, clipboard copy/paste, and bracketed paste.
• Safe multi-line pastes ask for confirmation by default. Save the complete visible output and retained history to a file from the command palette.
• Scrollback search supports optional regex, match highlighting, previous/next navigation, and soft-wrapped Unicode text. Ctrl+click opens detected HTTP(S), file://, absolute, and ~/ paths.
• A command palette, configurable keyboard shortcuts, configurable control-island placement, terminal color themes, font selection/size, ligatures, and window opacity.
• Profiles can define an executable, arguments, initial directory, environment, and terminal color theme. New sessions use the selected profile.
• Optional session restoration reopens tabs and their working directories. Configuration changes made in the separate settings process apply live to open windows.
• Shells that emit OSC 133 markers support previous/next-command navigation and desktop notifications when a long-running command completes in an unfocused window.
• System theme, live CreamUI theme updates, and hybrid compositor decorations.

Build

Keep dterm, creamui, and delib as sibling checkouts. Use stable Rust and install a C/C++ compiler, pkg-config, D-Bus, Wayland and libxkbcommon development packages. Fontconfig supplies the system monospace font.

cargo build --release --locked
cargo run --locked
cargo run --locked -- --settings
cargo run --locked -- --working-directory ~/Projects
cargo run --locked -- -e /bin/sh -c 'printf "hello\n"; exec /bin/sh'
cargo run --locked -- --export-config /tmp/dterm.toml
cargo run --locked -- --import-config /tmp/dterm.toml

The current CreamUI checkout includes the native keyboard interception API required for Tab and function keys to reach terminal applications.

Shortcuts

All shortcuts are configurable in Settings → Shortcuts. Alt+1 through Alt+9 select tabs.

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+T / Ctrl+Shift+N / Ctrl+Shift+W	New tab / new window / close tab
Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Next / previous tab
Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V	Copy selection / paste
Ctrl+Shift+F	Search scrollback
Ctrl+Shift+P	Command palette
Ctrl+Shift+R / Ctrl+Shift+S	Rename tab / save terminal output
Ctrl+Alt+H / Ctrl+Alt+V / Ctrl+Alt+W	Split horizontally / vertically / close pane
Ctrl+Alt+] / Ctrl+Alt+[	Focus next / previous pane
Ctrl+Alt+Plus / Ctrl+Alt+Minus	Grow / shrink the focused pane
Ctrl+Alt+B	Toggle input broadcast to all panes in the tab
Ctrl+Alt+Up / Ctrl+Alt+Down	Previous / next shell command marker
Ctrl+Comma	Open settings
Shift+PageUp / PageDown, mouse wheel	Scroll history

Search opens the control island for the active tab and searches both the visible screen and retained history. Type to search, toggle .* for regular expressions, and use ↑ / ↓ or Shift+Enter / Enter to visit matches. Navigation wraps and the counter shows the current match and total. Matches are highlighted, including text spanning soft-wrapped lines; invalid patterns display an error. Search is case-sensitive (use (?i) in regex mode for case-insensitive matching). Escape or × closes the bar and returns keyboard input to the terminal. Each tab keeps its own query.

Applications using the alternate screen keep their own screen contents. Mouse reporting, hyperlinks, and Sixel/Kitty image protocols are not implemented yet.

Settings → General → Control island controls whether floating search controls are enabled, their horizontal or vertical layout, and independent horizontal (left, center, right) and vertical (top, center, bottom) placement. Changes apply live after saving. Disabling it closes active searches and ignores their activation shortcut; the terminal continues receiving normal input. The island stays within the terminal area, clear of the header and status bar. Vertical layouts scroll when the window is too short to fit every control.

Configuration

delib resolves $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dterm/dterm.toml (normally ~/.config/dterm/dterm.toml), followed by $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/dterm/dterm.toml for system defaults. A missing file uses the built-in defaults; settings writes the user file atomically when you click Save changes. --export-config writes the current resolved configuration, while --import-config validates a TOML file before installing it as the user configuration.

shell = "bash"
font = "Fira Code"
profile = "default"
scrollback = 10000
confirm_multiline_paste = true
restore_session = true
notify_on_command_completion = true
command_completion_threshold_seconds = 10

[appearance]
font_size = 14
ligatures = true
opacity = 100

[profiles.default]
executable = "bash"
arguments = []
theme = "default" # default | dracula | solarized_dark | solarized_light

[profiles.work]
executable = "ssh"
arguments = ["dev.example"]
initial_directory = "Projects"
theme = "dracula"

[profiles.work.environment]
LANG = "C.UTF-8"

[island]
enabled = true
orientation = "horizontal" # horizontal | vertical
horizontal = "center" # left | center | right
vertical = "bottom" # top | center | bottom

[shortcuts]
new_tab = "Ctrl+Shift+T"
new_window = "Ctrl+Shift+N"
close_tab = "Ctrl+Shift+W"
next_tab = "Ctrl+Tab"
previous_tab = "Ctrl+Shift+Tab"
tab_1 = "Alt+1"
copy = "Ctrl+Shift+C"
paste = "Ctrl+Shift+V"
search = "Ctrl+Shift+F"
palette = "Ctrl+Shift+P"
rename_tab = "Ctrl+Shift+R"
save_output = "Ctrl+Shift+S"
split_horizontal = "Ctrl+Alt+H"
split_vertical = "Ctrl+Alt+V"
close_pane = "Ctrl+Alt+W"
focus_next_pane = "Ctrl+Alt+]"
focus_previous_pane = "Ctrl+Alt+["
grow_pane = "Ctrl+Alt+Plus"
shrink_pane = "Ctrl+Alt+Minus"
previous_command = "Ctrl+Alt+Up"
next_command = "Ctrl+Alt+Down"
toggle_broadcast_input = "Ctrl+Alt+B"
settings = "Ctrl+Comma"
scroll_up = "Shift+PageUp"
scroll_down = "Shift+PageDown"

Omitted shortcuts retain their defaults. tab_1 through tab_9 select a tab by its one-based index; an empty string disables a shortcut. The Shortcuts tab records keys directly, detects conflicts, and supports Escape to cancel or Backspace/Delete to clear a binding. Ctrl, Shift, Alt, Super, navigation keys, F1–F12, and named punctuation such as Comma and Plus are supported.

Saved shortcuts apply to open windows automatically. Shell changes apply to new sessions: the configured executable is searched in PATH, then sh, then bash; an explicit -e command is never replaced with a fallback shell. Malformed configuration leaves the running window's previous bindings in place and displays the error.

Install

install -Dm755 target/release/dterm ~/.local/bin/dterm
install -Dm644 data/dterm.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/dterm.desktop

Development

src/island.rs provides the shared surface and placement settings. Commands activate a per-session Mode through State::activate_mode; Escape and the close control dismiss it. Search, paste confirmation, the command palette, tab renaming, and output saving are island modes. New modes supply their content and preferred size through State::control_island, and implement their state updates in Session::set_mode / refresh_mode and keyboard handling in State::key. Keyboard callbacks must remain independent of theme/context hooks; styling belongs to the window build.

cargo test --locked
cargo clippy --all-targets --locked -- -D warnings
cargo fmt --check

Licensed under Apache-2.0.