ktrem

ktrem is a standalone terminal application using Kryon for windowing, rendering, input, and platform integration. The terminal emulator belongs here, not in Kryon.

make
make run
make test
make install

make install installs ktrem, the Rill host module, a desktop launcher, and a kterm compatibility command name under the selected PREFIX (~/.local by default).

Release builds are covered by .github/workflows/release.yml: pull requests and pushes run the Linux build/test path, and published GitHub Releases upload Linux tar.gz, .deb, and .AppImage assets plus checksums. The remaining feature and release-readiness plan is tracked in docs/REMAINING_FEATURE_PLAN.md.

By default the build uses ../kryon. Override with:

make ENGINE_DIR=/path/to/kryon

Run options:

ktrem --working-directory /path/to/project
ktrem --default-working-directory /path/to/project
ktrem --shell /bin/bash
ktrem --command 'make test'
ktrem --command='make test'
ktrem -e 'make test'
ktrem -x make test
ktrem --title 'Build'
ktrem --command 'make test' --tab --title 'Logs' --command 'tail -f build.log'
ktrem --drop-down --title 'System' --command htop
ktrem --geometry 120x40
ktrem --fullscreen
ktrem --maximize
ktrem --hold
ktrem --font-size 18
ktrem --scrollback 10000
ktrem --cursor-style bar
ktrem --terminal-font /usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf
ktrem --terminal-foreground '#f2f2f2' --terminal-background '#101010' --terminal-cursor '#f2f2f2'
ktrem --terminal-selection-foreground '#101010' --terminal-selection-background '#5a8fd8'

ktrem accepts common xfce4-terminal launch aliases: --command/-e, --execute/-x, --default-working-directory, --title/-T, --hold/-H, --geometry, --fullscreen, --maximize, --drop-down, --disable-server, --tab, --window, and menubar/toolbar/border visibility flags. --tab starts additional tabs from command-line specs. --drop-down starts a borderless top-of-screen terminal window. --window is accepted as a separator and currently opens another tab because ktrem does not have multi-window process/server support yet.

Config is read from $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ktrem/config or ~/.config/ktrem/config:

font_size=16
scrollback=5000
cursor_style=block
terminal_font=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf
terminal_foreground=#f2f2f2
terminal_background=#101010
terminal_cursor=#f2f2f2
terminal_selection_foreground=#101010
terminal_selection_background=#5a8fd8
shell=/bin/bash
working_directory=/home/me/project

String values saved by ktrem use backslash escapes for tabs, newlines, and literal backslashes.

ktrem restores open tabs on startup when no command is configured, including the active tab plus each tab's working directory, shell, command, scroll position, and manual title override. The restore file lives under $XDG_STATE_HOME/ktrem/session or ~/.local/state/ktrem/session.

ktrem chrome and default terminal foreground/background/cursor colors follow the Kryon system theme. Explicit profile colors and OSC color changes stay in control until reset.

Use the Terminal menu to update profile defaults for shell, working directory, terminal font, font size, colors, selection colors, scrollback, cursor color, and cursor style. Changes are saved to the same config file and apply to future tabs; font, colors, scrollback, and cursor changes also apply to the running window.

Shortcuts:

• Ctrl+Shift+T: new tab
• Ctrl+Shift+W: close tab
• Ctrl+Tab: next tab
• Ctrl+Shift+Tab: previous tab
• Ctrl+PageUp / Ctrl+PageDown: previous tab, next tab
• Alt+1 through Alt+8: switch directly to that tab
• Ctrl+Shift+C: copy selection
• Ctrl+Shift+V: paste
• Ctrl+Insert / Shift+Insert: copy selection, paste
• Ctrl+Shift+F: find
• Ctrl+Shift+G: find next
• Ctrl+Shift+B: find previous
• Ctrl++ / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0: zoom in, zoom out, reset size
• Shift+PageUp / Shift+PageDown: scroll

Find searches scrollback plus the visible terminal. Lowercase queries match case-insensitively; queries containing uppercase letters are case-sensitive.

Mouse selection keeps a local primary selection for the terminal; middle click pastes that selection before falling back to the system clipboard, and the right-click menu exposes both clipboard paste and primary-selection paste. Copied soft-wrapped lines are joined without adding artificial newlines. Bracketed paste wraps pasted text and strips embedded terminal control sequences so copied text cannot break out of the paste bracket. OSC 52 clipboard queries are synced from the host clipboard before terminal output is parsed, and OSC 52 clipboard writes update the host clipboard. OSC 8 terminal hyperlinks are underlined with the theme link color and open with Ctrl + left click.

Terminal graphics:

• Sixel images are decoded from DCS sequences and rendered inline in the terminal viewport.
• DEC special graphics character sets are mapped to Unicode line-drawing characters for ncurses-style terminal UIs.
• Insert/replace mode (CSI 4 h/l) is supported, including terminal mode reports.
• ANSI newline mode (CSI 20 h/l) controls whether LF/VT/FF also return to column zero, including terminal mode reports.
• SGR rendering covers bold, faint, italic, underline, underline color, blink, inverse, conceal, strike, overline, indexed colors, and truecolor.
• Application cursor-key mode covers arrow keys plus Home/End, including modified Home/End sequences.
• Function-key output covers F1-F24 with xterm-style modifier sequences, and XTGETTCAP advertises those emitted key capabilities.
• Application keypad mode covers digits, operators, center/corner keys, and Enter, with matching XTGETTCAP keypad capability reports.
• Printable-key input maps Ctrl letters and common Ctrl punctuation, including Ctrl+/ and Ctrl+-, to terminal control bytes, with Alt preserved as an ESC prefix.
• xterm modifyOtherKeys mode (CSI > 4 ; n m) is supported for modified printable-key reporting, including the xterm disable sequence (CSI > 4 n).
• Mouse reporting covers X10, normal, button-event, any-event, SGR coordinates, SGR-Pixels coordinates, UTF-8 coordinates, urxvt coordinates, wheel events, motion events, and modifier bits.
• Cursor save/restore keeps cursor position, rendition, active character set, origin/wrap mode, insert mode, and hyperlink state.
• Alternate-screen mode presents only the alternate grid while preserving normal scrollback for restoration after full-screen apps exit.
• xterm alternate-scroll mode (DECSET 1007) sends wheel movement as cursor keys in the alternate screen when mouse reporting is not active.
• xterm focus reporting (DECSET 1004) sends focus changes for both window focus and active-tab changes.
• 8-bit C1 CSI/OSC/DCS plus IND/NEL/HTS/RI controls are parsed, and APC/PM/SOS control strings are ignored so their payloads do not leak into the terminal grid.
• BEL triggers a short theme-colored visual bell without writing text into the terminal grid.
• CAN/SUB cancel active control sequences and return the parser to text mode.
• Common CSI aliases are supported, including horizontal/vertical relative moves, horizontal absolute moves, and repeat preceding graphic character.
• DECSTR soft reset (CSI ! p) resets terminal modes, margins, rendition, and character sets without clearing the visible grid.
• DECRQSS status-string reports answer SGR, scroll-margin, cursor-style, and character-protection queries with valid DCS responses.
• XTGETTCAP (DCS + q) reports the terminal name, color capabilities, and the special-key sequences ktrem actually emits.
• Horizontal tab set/clear controls are supported, including clearing all tab stops for terminal UI alignment.
• DEC private cursor-position reports and DEC screen-alignment test are handled.
• DEC private cursor visibility and blink modes are reported and rendered.
• DECSCUSR cursor-shape controls distinguish blinking and steady block, underline, and bar cursors.
• XTWINOPS text-area and screen character-size reports return the active terminal grid dimensions.
• VT next-line and DECID escape controls are handled.
• OSC palette queries return xterm-style indexed responses and fall back to the built-in 256-color palette when a color has not been overridden.
• OSC color parsing accepts compact and wide X-style hash forms in addition to rgb: values.
• OSC dynamic colors cover default foreground/background, cursor, selection background, selection foreground, and indexed palette entries.
• OSC title handling distinguishes window and icon titles, and includes target-aware save/restore stack controls for terminal programs that temporarily replace titles.
• OSC 52 clipboard sequences can set the host clipboard and answer bounded clipboard queries from the current host clipboard.
• Terminal foreground, background, and cursor-color resets return to the resolved Kryon/system theme colors unless the profile explicitly overrides them.
• Sixel color registers, RGB/HLS color definitions, raster attributes, repeat commands, row advance, carriage return, transparency, 7-bit DCS, and 8-bit DCS/ST are supported.
• Erase-line, erase-display, reset, alternate-screen clear, scrolling, and scrollback eviction keep sixel images attached to the terminal content.