Termonad is a terminal emulator configurable in Haskell. It is extremely customizable and provides hooks to modify the default behavior. It can be thought of as the "XMonad" of terminal emulators.
Table of Contents
Termonad can be installed on any system as long as the necessary GTK libraries are available. The following are instructions for installing Termonad on a few different distributions and systems. If the given steps don't work for you, or you want to add instructions for an additional system, please send a pull request.
The following steps use the
stack build tool to build
Termonad, but cabal can be used as well. Steps for
installing stack can be found on
this page.
First, you must install the required GTK system libraries:
$ pacman -S vte3In order to install Termonad, clone this repository and run stack install.
This will install the termonad binary to ~/.local/bin/:
$ git clone https://github.com/cdepillabout/termonad
$ cd termonad/
$ stack installFirst, you must install the required GTK system libraries:
$ apt-get install gobject-introspection libgirepository1.0-dev libgtk-3-dev libvte-2.91-devIn order to install Termonad, clone this repository and run stack install.
This will install the termonad binary to ~/.local/bin/:
$ git clone https://github.com/cdepillabout/termonad
$ cd termonad/
$ stack installIf you have nix installed, you should be able to use it to build Termonad.
This means that it will work on NixOS, or with nix on another distro. There
are two different ways to use nix to build Termonad:
The first is using stack. The following commands install stack for your
user, clone this repository, and install the termonad binary to ~/.local/bin/:
$ nix-env -i stack
$ git clone https://github.com/cdepillabout/termonad
$ cd termonad/
$ stack --nix installThe second is using the normal nix-build machinery. The following commands
clone this repository and build the termonad binary at ./result/bin/:
$ git clone https://github.com/cdepillabout/termonad
$ cd termonad/
$ nix-build(currently no instructions available. please send a PR adding instructions if you get termonad to build.)
(currently no instructions available. please send a PR adding instructions if you get termonad to build.)
Termonad is similar to XMonad. The above steps will install a termonad binary
somewhere on your system. If you have installed Termonad using stack, the
termonad binary will be in ~/.local/bin/. This binary is a version of
Termonad configured with default settings. You can try running it to get an idea
of what Termonad is like:
$ ~/.local/bin/termonadThe following section describes the default keybindings.
If you would like to configure termonad with your own settings, first you will
need to create a Haskell file called ~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs. A following
section gives an example configuration file.
If this file exists, when the ~/.local/bin/termonad binary launches, it will
try to compile it. If it succeeds, it will create a separate binary file called
something like ~/.cache/termonad/termonad-linux-x86_64. This binary file can
be thought of as your own personal Termonad, configured with all your own
settings.
When you run ~/.local/bin/termonad, it will re-exec
~/.cache/termonad/termonad-linux-x86_64 if it exists.
However, there is one difficulty with this setup. In order for the
~/.local/bin/termonad binary to be able to compile your
~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs file, it needs to know where GHC is, as well as
where all your Haskell packages live. This presents some difficulties that will
be discussed in a following section.
Termonad provides the following default key bindings.
| Keybinding | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl Shift t | Open new tab. |
| Ctrl Shift w | Close tab. |
| Alt (number key) | Switch to tab number. For example, Alt 2 switches to tab 2. |
The following is an example Termonad configuration file. You should save this to
~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs. You can find more information on the available
configuration options within the
Termonad.Config
module.
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
module Main where
import Data.Colour.SRGB (Colour, sRGB24)
import Termonad.App (defaultMain)
import Termonad.Config
( FontConfig, FontSize(FontSizePoints), ShowScrollbar(ShowScrollbarAlways)
, cursorColor, defaultFontConfig, defaultTMConfig, fontConfig, fontFamily
, fontSize, showScrollbar
)
-- | This sets the color of the cursor in the terminal.
--
-- This uses the "Data.Colour" module to define a dark-red color.
-- There are many default colors defined in "Data.Colour.Names".
cursColor :: Colour Double
cursColor = sRGB24 204 0 0
-- | This defines the font for the terminal.
fontConf :: FontConfig
fontConf =
defaultFontConfig
{ fontFamily = "DejaVu Sans Mono"
, fontSize = FontSizePoints 13
}
main :: IO ()
main = do
let termonadConf =
defaultTMConfig
{ cursorColor = cursColor
, fontConfig = fontConf
-- Make sure the scrollbar is always visible.
, showScrollbar = ShowScrollbarAlways
}
defaultMain termonadConfIf you lauch Termonad by calling ~/.local/bin/termonad, it will try to
compile the ~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs file if it exists. The problem is
that ~/.local/bin/termonad needs to be able to see GHC and the required
Haskell libraries to be able to compile ~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs.
There are a couple solutions to this problem, listed in the sections below.
(These steps are definitely confusing, and I would love to figure out a better way to do this. Please submit an issue or PR if you have a good idea about how to fix this.)
If you originally compiled Termonad with stack, you can use stack to
execute Termonad. First, you must change to the directory with the Termonad
source code. From there, you can run stack exec:
$ cd termonad/ # change to the termonad source code directory
$ stack exec -- termonadstack will pick up the correct GHC version and libraries from the
stack.yaml and termonad.cabal file. termonad will be run in an
environment with GHC available. termonad will use this GHC and libraries to
compile your ~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs file. It if succeeds, it should
create a ~/.cache/termonad/termonad-linux-x86_64 binary.
If you need extra Haskell libraries available when compiling your
~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs file, you can specify them to stack exec:
$ stack exec --package lens --package conduit -- termonadThe problem with this is that stack exec changes quite a few of your
environment variables. It is not recommended to actually run Termonad from
within stack exec. After you run stack exec -- termonad and let it
recompile your ~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs file, exit Termonad.
Re-run Termonad by calling it directly. Termonad will notice that
~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs hasn't changed since
~/.cache/termonad/termonad-linux-x86_64 has been recompiled, so it will
directly execute ~/.cache/termonad/termonad-linux-x86_64.
Building Termonad with nix (by running nix-build in the top
directory) sets it up so that Termonad can see GHC. Termonad should be able
to compile the ~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs file by default.
If you're interested in how this works, or want to change which Haskell
packages are available from your ~/.config/termonad/termonad.hs file, please
see the documentation in the
.nix-helpers/termonad-with-packages.nix
file.
Termonad has the following goals:
-
fully configurable in Haskell
There are already many good terminal emulators. However, there are no terminal emulators fully configurable in Haskell. Termonad fills this niche.
-
flexible
Most people only need a terminal emulator that lets you change the font-size, cursor color, etc. They don't need tons of configuration options. Termonad should be for people that like lots of configuration options. Termonad should provide many hooks to allow the user full control over its behavior.
-
stable
Termonad should be able to be used everyday as your main terminal emulator. It should not crash for any reason. If you experience a crash, please file an issue or a pull request!
-
good documentation
The documentation for Termonad on Hackage should be good. You shouldn't have to guess at what certain data types or functions do. If you have a hard time understanding anything in the documentation, please submit an issue or PR.
Contributions are highly appreciated. Termonad is currently missing many helpful configuration options and behavior hooks. If there is something you would like to add, please submit an issue or PR.