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WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

wezfurlong.org

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Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#71

Post by atombender »

Looks promising! It seems fast, and I like the idea of a more stripped-down terminal app. I use iTerm, which simply has too much.

That said, it has a long way to go to beat iTerm for me. Seems more like an early alpha than a finished product?

For example, out of the box, it does not support European keyboard layouts:

* I cannot type "|" because the Alt key doesn't seem to work, not even with "send_composed_key_when_left_alt_is_pressed" enabled.

* Similarly, I also cannot use Super+"[" or Super+"]" to switch tabs, because on my keyboard, "[" and "]" are Alt-7 and Alt-8 respectively.

* While Cmd+"-" works to reduce the font size, Cmd+"=" does nothing, probably because "=" requires shift on my keyboard.

There's no GUI as such. For example, attempting to close a tab brings up a text mode dialog inside the terminal window, which feels strange and antiquated. Same with the find function; the latter is more concerning, since you don't get access to normal UI functions such as like selection.

Right-clicking also doesn't bring up the standard macOS context menu.

Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#72

Post by wdroz »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #65
wdroz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I side with the lead developer. The "reporter" clearly don't use any nuances and think that his opinions are "aligned with the general public".

"Green should look like green and not yellow by default" is not an entitled opinion, and definitely shouldn't be met with the hostility it was.

The lead explains in more details

> The initial issue description basically said "the colors are wrong" with no description of what specifically is wrong, what you've tried (if anything), and a non-representative screenshot where your "expected" results are being skewed by the non-focused window dimming. You put the onus on us to engage and poke at your problem to find out what you actually want.

> The defaults don't match your urxvt installation, and because they don't match your previous terminal, you insist they are somehow wrong.

> "Aparently the defaults are poor" - attacking a decision based on your personal bias without consideration for why things are the way they are or that others may actually enjoy the defaults

> "I think it would be a good idea to copy the default colors from urxvt." - this is basically saying the same as above but with more emphasis on expecting the project to change for and accomodate you.

> "Should I open an issue to review the default colors?" - A harmless question by itself, but with context from previous comments, this is again expecting the project to change for you.

Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#73

Post by geokon »

gravypod wrote: post #66
geokon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency and throughput benchmarks don't confirm this. Eshell has one of the best latencies (that's why it feels so responsive compared to VS Code) but low throughput Generally if you are barfing meg's of data to screen you're prolly doing something wrong... (You prolly wanna be using less?) And of course your next keystroke is not zero copy. It needs to be sent to the GPU and the texture needs to be updated. GPU term…

> Generally if you are barfing meg's of data to screen you're prolly doing something wrong... (You prolly wanna be using less?) Why? Many commands I've run have produced a lot of log output in my day.

Bc you wanna see the output? With less you can go page by page and read the output. If there is so much output you can't read it.. then what's the point of printing it to the screen?

If you're looking for something in the stream then maybe you should grep for it?

I'm not saying you never ever should barf to screen - but as far as I can see, you kinda have to strain yourself to concoct a "valid" usecase

Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#74

Post by foothall »

Deukhoofd wrote: post #65
wdroz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I side with the lead developer. The "reporter" clearly don't use any nuances and think that his opinions are "aligned with the general public".

"Green should look like green and not yellow by default" is not an entitled opinion, and definitely shouldn't be met with the hostility it was.

https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/issues/1561#issuecomm... describes why the maintainer thinks the opinion was entitled. I don't think your description is accurate.

Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#75

Post by ziotom78 »

atombender wrote: post #71

Looks promising! It seems fast, and I like the idea of a more stripped-down terminal app. I use iTerm, which simply has too much. That said, it has a long way to go to beat iTerm for me. Seems more like an early alpha than a finished product? For example, out of the box, it does not support European keyboard layouts: * I cannot type "|" because the Alt key doesn't seem to work, not even with "send_composed_key_when_l…

> It seems fast

I was intrigued by WezTerm, but after a few tests I realized that it was ~3 times slower than Kitty (my current terminal of choice) in printing random stuff on the screen, so I decided to stick with the latter. It is a pity, because I love the way WezTerm can be configured!

Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#77

Post by foothall »

theobeers wrote: post #55
foothall wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anything about Alacritty. What is unhealthy about the project?

I don't want to speak uncharitably of Alacritty, which was my daily driver for a couple years. It's FOSS, the developers don't owe me/us anything, etc. And I never contributed (though I tried once or twice and was summarily rejected). It's better to focus on the positives of other projects. I will say, on a more specific note, that if you use macOS and have been frustrated with certain longstanding issues in Alacritt…

I see. Poor MacOS support isn't indicative of an unhealthy project, but I can see why MacOS users might want to avoid such projects.

Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#78

Post by nyadesu »

usrbinbash wrote: post #28
mattbee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it more complicated than wanting to update the display as often as its fresh frequency? Faster screen updates, lower CPU & power usage. You might not notice the difference until you accidentally unleash a lot of output at once - then you'll see the difference. Some terminals start to update infrequently to save themselves, some hang completely while burning the CPU. Psychologically I feel more in control of my com…

> until you accidentally unleash a lot of output at once The only time this happens, is when I do something wrong, like `cat`-ing the 12MB binary instead of the config.json, or `tail -f` into the output device of the core logging endpoint and forget to pipe into `grep`. If that happens, I usually terminate the process anyway.

This is also pretty common when running test runners a lot

Re: WezTerm – A GPU-accelerated cross-platform terminal emulator and multiplexer

#80

Post by smcleod »

tyingq wrote: post #79
smcleod wrote: post #62

Iterm2 is GPU accelerated if I remember correctly as well isn't it? Seems incredibly fast for everything I throw at it.

Yes, optionally: https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/-/wikis/Metal-Renderer

It's just a tick box in the app, I think it's defaulted to on for a few years now
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