par-term

A cross-platform, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator frontend built with Rust, powered by par-term-emu-core-rust. Designed for high performance, modern typography, and rich graphics support.

What's New in 0.24.0

🔒 Security & Safety

• Paste Control Character Sanitization: Control characters are now stripped from clipboard paste to prevent injection via crafted clipboard content
• MCP IPC File Permissions: MCP IPC socket files created with restrictive permissions to prevent unauthorized access
• Session Logger Password Redaction: Passwords redacted from session log output
• Config Variable Substitution Allowlist: Config variable substitution restricted to explicit allowlist to prevent injection
• RunCommand Trigger Restriction: RunCommand actions can no longer be triggered from terminal output — user key presses only
• Graceful Shutdown: Replaced abrupt process::exit() with proper graceful shutdown

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Box-Drawing Line Thickness (tmux Borders): Fixed tmux pane borders rendering inconsistently — pixel rectangles snapped to integer boundaries for consistent line thickness
• Prettifier Line Mapping: Fixed index drift in cell substitution when rendered output differs from source line count
• Prettifier Cell Dimensions: GPU cell metrics now synced into prettifier pipeline — inline graphics (Mermaid, etc.) sized correctly
• Prettifier Small Block Detection: Removed block-size guard that prevented small blocks from rendering
• Prettifier Claude Code Integration: Viewport hash used to clear stale Claude Code blocks; CC segmentation and throttle restored in split module
• Split-Pane Unsafe Cell Pointer: Eliminated unsafe cell pointer leak in split-pane render path

✨ New Features

• Content Prettifier: Detects structured content in terminal output (Markdown, JSON, YAML, TOML, XML, CSV, diffs, logs, diagrams, SQL results, stack traces) and renders with syntax highlighting, table formatting, and color-coded diffs — pluggable architecture with custom renderer support, per-profile overrides, and Settings UI tab
• Font Hinting Enabled by Default: Improved text sharpness at common display sizes (toggle in Settings → Appearance)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Inline Graphics in Split Pane Mode: Sixel/iTerm2/Kitty graphics now render correctly in split-pane layouts
• Scrollback in Split Pane Mode: Mouse-wheel scroll, Page Up/Down, and keyboard marks navigation now work in split panes
• Scrollbar in Split Pane Mode: Scrollbar now appears inside the focused pane's bounds
• clear Removes Inline Graphics: ED 2/ED 3 erase-display sequences now clear all inline graphics
• Window Arrangement DPI Fix: Arrangement restore now works correctly across mixed-DPI multi-monitor setups
• Character Rendering Artifacts: Fixed thin bright lines at cell edges from bilinear sampling bleed
• Symbol Rendering: Fixed symbols from emoji fonts (dingbats, misc symbols) rendering incorrectly
• Text Selection in Mouse-Tracking Apps: Shift+click/drag now bypasses app mouse tracking for local selection
• tmux Pane Click Fix: Clicks no longer blocked by clipboard image guard
• Trackpad Jitter Selection: Increased drag dead-zone to suppress accidental micro-selections
• Tab Emoji Rendering: Sanitized emoji/ZWJ sequences in tab labels to avoid tofu
• Settings Search Keywords: Fixed and expanded search keywords across all settings tabs
• Startup Error Message: par-term now prints clear errors on startup failure (e.g., missing display server)

• Agent Screenshot Tool: terminal_screenshot MCP tool for visual terminal capture by ACP agents
• Code Block Rendering in Chat: Agent messages with fenced code blocks render with dark background, border, language label, and monospace font
• Cancel Queued Messages / Streaming: Cancel buttons for queued and in-progress messages
• Multi-line Chat Input: Enter sends, Shift+Enter inserts newline, grows up to 6 rows
• Auto-Approval Chat Notifications: Auto-approved tool calls show in chat history
• Best-Effort Context Restore: Reconnecting preserves prior chat context
• Glass Sphere Bounce Shader: New background shader
• Fixed: Input/shader lag, scrollbar repositioning, new-tab button clipping, assistant panel overlap, clipboard image loss, tab bar borders

• Nerd Font Icons for Profile Picker: Replaced emoji presets with ~120 curated Nerd Font icons across 10 categories with descriptive tooltips
• Tab Icon via Context Menu: Right-click any tab to pick a custom icon from the Nerd Font grid — persists across sessions, layouts, and tab duplication
• Tab Title Mode: New tab_title_mode config option (auto / osc_only) controls automatic tab title updates
• Rename Tab: Right-click any tab to set a custom static name — enter blank to revert to automatic behavior
• Major Idle CPU Reduction: Reduced idle CPU from ~103% to ~18-25% via conditional dirty tracking, fast render path, adaptive polling backoff
• Fixed: Layout restore tab properties, input lag, scrollbar overlap, geometric shapes, clipboard loss, settings revert, tab bar borders

• Status Bar Update Widget: New UpdateAvailable widget with clickable update dialog
• Rain Glass Shader: New rain-glass.glsl background shader
• Inactive Tab Outline-Only Mode: New tab_inactive_outline_only option
• File Transfer Progress Overlay: Upload/download progress bars in bottom-right overlay
• Inline Image Display Fix: Fixed images >750 KB not rendering
• Upload Over SSH Fix: Fixed uploads hanging indefinitely
• Default window_padding → 0.0, font_hinting → false, tab_bar_mode → always

✨ New Features

• Configurable Link Highlight Color: Link highlight color for detected URLs and file paths is now configurable via link_highlight_color setting
• Link Underline Rendering: Detected URLs and file paths now render with visible underlines in the GPU text pipeline
• Stipple Underline Style: Added link_underline_style setting with Solid and Stipple options

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fast Window Shutdown: Fixed slow app close (beachball on macOS) that scaled with number of open tabs
• Settings Sidebar Icon: Fixed Input tab (⌨️) showing an empty box
• Crate Package Size: Reduced package from 24.7MiB to 3.9MiB

✨ New Features

• Quick Settings Shader Toggles: BG Shader and Cursor Shader toggle checkboxes in the settings UI quick settings strip
• Focus Event Forwarding: Forward CSI focus-in/out sequences to PTYs with DECSET 1004 focus tracking enabled

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Dingbat/Symbol Monochrome Rendering: Fixed dingbat characters rendering as colorful emoji instead of monochrome symbols
• Focus Click Clipboard Loss: Suppress first mouse click that focuses the window to prevent clipboard clearing
• Image Paste in Claude Code: Fixed Cmd+V not forwarding to terminal when clipboard contains an image but no text
• Settings Sidebar Icons: Fixed empty box rendering for several tab icons
• Shell Detection: Improved ShellType::detect() with multi-strategy fallback
• Settings Version Display: Fixed settings UI displaying subcrate version instead of app version
• Shell Integration Install/Uninstall: Fixed Install and Uninstall buttons not working

🏗️ Architecture

• Workspace Crate Extraction: Extracted 8 modules into dedicated workspace subcrates for maintainability

🔧 Bug Fixes & Dependency Updates

• macOS Self-Update: Auto-updater now removes macOS quarantine attributes (xattr -cr) from the downloaded .app bundle, preventing Gatekeeper from blocking the updated app on first launch
• Dependency Updates: Updated clap, libc, uuid, arboard, regex, zip, mdns-sd, ureq, and 27 transitive dependencies to latest versions

🤖 Assistant Panel (AI Integration)

DevTools-style right-side panel for terminal state inspection and ACP agent integration.

• Toggle with Cmd+I (macOS) / Ctrl+Shift+I (other) or keybinding action
• 4 view modes (Cards, Timeline, Tree, List+Detail) for browsing command history
• ACP agent chat: connect to Claude Code and other ACP-compatible agents via JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio
• 8 bundled agent configs: Claude Code, Amp, Augment, GitHub Copilot, Docker, Gemini CLI, OpenAI, OpenHands
• Agent command suggestions with Run (execute + notify) and Paste actions
• Auto-context feeding: sends command results to connected agent on completion
• Yolo mode: auto-approve all agent permission requests
• Resizable panel with drag handle; terminal reflows columns when panel opens/closes/resizes

🎨 Shader Assistant for ACP Agents

Context-triggered shader expertise for ACP agents.

• Auto-detects shader-related queries and active shader state
• Injects full shader reference into agent prompts (current state, available shaders, uniforms, GLSL template)
• Config file watcher for live-reloading agent-applied shader changes

📂 Workspace Crate Extraction

Major refactoring into modular workspace crates for maintainability.

• par-term-fonts: Font management and text shaping
• par-term-terminal: Terminal manager, scrollback, styled content
• par-term-render: GPU rendering engine, shaders, cell renderer
• par-term-settings-ui: Complete settings UI (28 tabs, sidebar, section helpers)
• All types re-exported from main crate for backward compatibility

📁 File Transfer UI

Native file dialogs and progress overlay for iTerm2 OSC 1337 file transfers.

• Native save dialog for downloads, file picker for uploads
• Real-time egui progress overlay with progress bars
• Desktop notifications for transfer lifecycle events
• Shell integration utilities: pt-dl, pt-ul, pt-imgcat for remote file operations

🐍 Scripting Manager

Python scripts that react to terminal events via the observer API.

• 12 event types (bell, cwd_changed, command_complete, etc.) and 9 command types
• Per-tab script lifecycle with auto-start and restart policies
• JSON protocol over stdin/stdout for bidirectional communication
• Markdown panels: scripts can register custom UI panels in Settings

🖼️ Per-Pane Background Images

Individual background images for each split pane with GPU texture caching.

• Per-pane image path, display mode (fit/fill/stretch/tile/center), and opacity
• Settings UI with pane index selector, file picker, mode dropdown, opacity slider

🌐 Dynamic Profiles from Remote URLs

Load team-shared profile definitions from remote URLs.

• Background auto-refresh with configurable timer and local cache
• Conflict resolution: Local Wins or Remote Wins
• Visual [dynamic] indicators; dynamic profiles are read-only

🔧 Other Changes

• Duplicate Tab: Right-click context menu option to duplicate any tab with same CWD and color
• Auto Dark Mode: Auto-switch terminal theme based on system light/dark appearance
• Automatic Tab Style: Tab bar style follows system theme with configurable light/dark mapping
• macOS Target Space: Open windows in a specific macOS Space (virtual desktop)
• Configurable Link Handler: Custom command for opening URLs instead of system default browser
• Fast Window Shutdown: Closing par-term is now visually instant instead of 8+ seconds
• Shift+Tab Fix: Now correctly sends CSI Z to terminal applications

🌐 SSH Host Management

Comprehensive SSH host profiles, quick connect, and auto-discovery.

• SSH Quick Connect dialog (Cmd+Shift+S) with search, keyboard navigation, grouped by source
• SSH config parser (~/.ssh/config), known hosts parser, shell history scanner
• mDNS/Bonjour SSH host discovery via _ssh._tcp.local. (opt-in)
• SSH-specific profile fields: host, user, port, identity file, extra args
• Automatic profile switching on SSH connection with auto-revert on disconnect

📊 Status Bar

Configurable status bar with widget system and system monitoring.

• 10 built-in widgets: clock, username@hostname, current directory, git branch, CPU/memory usage, network status, bell indicator, current command, custom text
• Widget configurator in Settings UI with drag-and-drop reordering
• Auto-hide on fullscreen and/or mouse inactivity

🔧 Other Changes

• Profile Selection on New Tab: Split +/▾ button on tab bar for quick profile launch
• Shell Selection Per Profile: Configure specific shells per profile with platform-aware detection
• Navigate to Settings from Application Menu: Platform-aware settings access
• Install Shell Integration on Remote Host: Shell menu option with confirmation dialog

📂 Directory-Based Profile Switching

Automatically switch profiles based on current working directory.

• New directory_patterns field on profiles (glob patterns like /Users/*/projects/work-*)
• CWD changes detected via OSC 7 trigger profile matching
• Priority: explicit user selection > hostname match > directory match > default
• Settings UI for editing directory patterns per profile

🎨 Tab Style Variants

Cosmetic tab bar presets with 5 built-in styles.

• Dark (default), Light, Compact, Minimal, and High Contrast presets
• Each preset applies coordinated color/size/spacing adjustments
• Config: tab_style: dark|light|compact|minimal|high_contrast

🔊 Alert Sounds

Configurable sound effects for terminal events.

• Per-event sound configuration: Bell, Command Complete, New Tab, Tab Close
• Each event supports: enable/disable, volume, frequency, duration, custom sound file
• Custom sound files: WAV/OGG/FLAC format with ~ home directory expansion
• UI in Settings > Notifications > Alert Sounds

🔍 Fuzzy Command History Search

Searchable overlay for browsing and selecting from command history.

• Fuzzy matching with ranked results via Skim algorithm
• Match highlighting, exit code indicators, and relative timestamps
• Keyboard navigation: Arrow Up/Down, Enter to insert, Esc to close
• History persisted across sessions; keybinding: Cmd+R (macOS), Ctrl+Alt+R (Linux/Windows)

↩️ Session Undo — Reopen Closed Tabs

Recover accidentally closed tabs.

• Reopen with Cmd+Z (macOS) or Ctrl+Shift+Z (Linux/Windows)
• Toast notification shows undo keybinding hint and countdown
• Optional shell session preservation for full session restore with scrollback intact
• Configurable timeout and queue depth

💾 Session Restore on Startup

Automatically save and restore session state.

• Saves open windows, tabs, pane layouts, and working directories on clean exit
• Restores full session on next launch including split pane trees with ratios
• Config: restore_session: true (default: false)

📍 Tab Bar Position

Configurable tab bar placement with three positions.

• Top (default), Bottom, or Left (vertical sidebar)
• Configurable sidebar width for Left position (default 160px, range 100–300)
• All positions support tab bar visibility modes and live switching via Settings UI

📥 Import/Export Preferences

Import and export terminal configuration.

• Export current config to a YAML file via native file dialog
• Import from local file or URL with replace or merge modes
• Merge mode only overrides values that differ from defaults

🔧 Other Changes

• Profile Emoji Picker: Curated grid of ~70 terminal-relevant emojis in 9 categories for profile icons
• Full Profile Auto-Switch Application: Directory, hostname, and tmux session switching now apply all visual settings (icon, title, badge, command)
• Profile Management in Settings: Profile create/edit/delete/reorder UI moved inline to Settings > Profiles tab
• Settings Quick Search: Added missing search keywords across all settings tabs
• HiDPI/DPI Scaling Fix: All pixel-dimension config values now correctly scale on HiDPI displays
• Text Shaper LRU Cache: Upgraded from FIFO to proper LRU eviction for better cache hit rates
• Default Update Check: Changed from weekly to daily for faster update discovery

🔄 Self-Update

par-term can now update itself in-place — no package manager needed.

• CLI: par-term self-update with --yes flag for non-interactive use
• Settings UI: "Check Now" and "Install Update" buttons in Advanced > Updates
• Detects installation method (Homebrew, cargo, .app bundle, standalone binary) and shows appropriate instructions

─── Command Separator Lines

Horizontal separator lines between shell commands in the terminal grid.

• Renders thin lines at prompt boundaries using shell integration (OSC 133) marks
• Exit-code coloring: green for success, red for failure, gray for unknown
• Configurable thickness, opacity, and custom fixed color

🔀 Drag-and-Drop Tab Reordering

Reorder tabs by dragging them in the tab bar with ghost tab preview and insertion indicators.

📐 Window Arrangements

Save and restore window layouts (iTerm2 parity) with monitor-aware positioning and auto-restore on startup.

🔧 Other Changes

• Variable Substitution in Config (#102): Use ${VAR} and ${VAR:-default} in config.yaml values
• Shell Integration Event Queuing: OSC 133 markers now queue with cursor positions
• Remember Settings Section States (#105): Collapsible section states persist across sessions

📋 Vi-Style Copy Mode

Keyboard-driven text selection and navigation (iTerm2 parity).

• Full vi motions: h/j/k/l, w/b/e, 0/$, gg/G, count prefixes, half/full page scrolling
• Visual selection: Character (v), Line (V), and Block (Ctrl+V) modes with yank to clipboard
• Search: /pattern forward, ?pattern backward, n/N repeat (case-insensitive, wrapping)
• Marks: m{a-z} set, '{a-z} jump — persistent per-tab bookmarks through scrollback
• Status bar: Mode indicator (COPY/VISUAL/V-LINE/V-BLOCK/SEARCH) and cursor position
• Settings: Enable/disable, auto-exit on yank, status bar visibility (Settings > Input > Copy Mode)

📝 Snippets & Actions Completion

• Custom Variables UI: Collapsible per-snippet variable editor (name/value grid)
• Key Sequence Simulation: KeySequence actions send terminal byte sequences (Ctrl combos, arrow keys, F-keys)
• Import/Export: Export/import snippets as YAML with duplicate detection and keybinding conflict resolution

🔤 Unicode Normalization

Configurable normalization form (NFC/NFD/NFKC/NFKD/None) in Settings > Terminal > Unicode. Live-updates across all tabs.

🔧 Fixed

• Color emoji rendering (Apple Color Emoji now renders as colored bitmaps instead of monochrome outlines)
• Tmux pane resize via mouse drag (drag events now forwarded when mouse tracking enabled)
• Text baseline alignment (eliminated per-glyph rounding artifacts)
• File/URL link highlighting offset with multi-byte UTF-8 characters
• Absolute file path detection in link highlighting regex

📝 Snippets & Actions System

Text automation and custom actions (iTerm2 parity).

• Text Snippets: Save text blocks with variable substitution (\(variable) syntax), 10 built-in + 12 session variables
• Custom Actions: Shell commands, text insertion, and keyboard shortcuts triggered via keybindings
• Settings UI: Two new tabs — Snippets (📝) and Actions (🚀) — with keybinding recording and conflict detection
• Auto-Execute: Optional checkbox to run commands immediately when keybinding is pressed

📊 Progress Bar Rendering

Overlay progress bars via OSC 9;4 and OSC 934 protocols.

• Configurable style (bar or bar-with-text), position, height, opacity, and per-state colors
• Named concurrent progress bars stack vertically
• New iProgress shader uniform for progress-reactive shader effects

📋 Paste Enhancements

• Paste Delay: Configurable delay between pasted lines (paste_delay_ms, 0-500ms)
• Newline Control: Three new Paste Special transforms — Single Line, Add Newlines, Remove Newlines

🖥️ Shell Integration Enhancements

• Command in Title: Window title shows [command_name] during execution
• Badge Variables: \(session.exit_code) and \(session.current_command)
• Remote Host: OSC 1337 RemoteHost syncs hostname and username to badge variables

🖼️ Image & Pane Improvements

• Image Scaling: Choose nearest or linear filtering for inline images
• Aspect Ratio Control: Toggle aspect ratio preservation for inline images
• Pane Titles: GPU-rendered title bars for split panes
• Divider Styles: Four visual styles — Solid, Double, Dashed, Shadow

⌨️ Cross-Platform Keybindings

Redesigned Linux/Windows defaults to avoid conflicts with terminal control codes (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, etc.). macOS unchanged.

🔧 Fixed

• Dingbat/symbol rendering as colored emoji instead of monochrome glyphs
• Pane focus indicator, background opacity, divider hover, and divider width settings (#88)
• Platform-specific keybinding labels in snippet rows

⚡ Triggers, Trigger Actions & Coprocesses

Full automation system for terminal output processing with regex triggers, 7 action types, coprocesses, and scrollbar marks.

♿ Minimum Contrast Enforcement

WCAG-based accessibility — auto-adjusts text color when contrast ratio is too low.

📂 Semantic History

Ctrl+click file paths in terminal output to open them in your editor.

🔧 Configurable Log Level

Runtime log level control via log_level config or --log-level CLI flag.

🏷️ Per-Profile Badge Configuration

Full badge customization per profile (iTerm2 parity). Profiles can now override badge color, opacity, font, position, and size constraints individually.

⚡ Performance: Maximize Throughput Mode

Manual toggle for prioritizing bulk output processing over immediate responsiveness. Toggle with Cmd+Shift+T (macOS) or Ctrl+Shift+T (other platforms).

🖥️ Reduce Flicker

iTerm2-style flicker reduction for smoother terminal updates. Delays redraws while cursor is hidden (DECTCEM off).

🎮 GPU Power Preference

Control which GPU is used for rendering on multi-GPU systems: none, low_power, or high_performance.

🔄 Tmux Profile Auto-Switching

Automatically apply profiles when connecting to tmux sessions via tmux_session_patterns glob patterns.

⌨️ Enhanced Keyboard Input

Modifier key remapping, physical key bindings, and modifyOtherKeys protocol support.

🛡️ Close Confirmation for Running Jobs

Confirmation dialog when closing tabs/panes with active processes.

🔧 Shell Exit Action

Configurable behavior when shell exits: close, keep, restart_immediately, restart_with_prompt, or restart_after_delay.

📋 Welcome Dialog Changelog Link

The welcome/onboarding popup now includes a "View Changelog" link for easy access to release notes.

📁 Configurable Startup Directory

Control where new terminal sessions start with three modes: home, previous, or custom.

🏷️ Badge System

iTerm2-style semi-transparent text overlays with 12 dynamic variables and full appearance customization.

📊 Scrollbar Mark Tooltips

Hover over scrollbar command markers to see command text, execution time, duration, and exit code.

🎨 Tab Bar Enhancements

• Tab stretch to fill bar width (tab_stretch_to_fill)
• HTML markup support in tab titles

🔌 Integrations Install System

Unified installation for optional par-term enhancements.

• Shell Integration: Scripts for bash/zsh/fish enabling prompt navigation, CWD tracking, and command status
  • Install via CLI: par-term install-shell-integration
  • Install via curl: curl -fsSL https://paulrobello.github.io/par-term/install-shell-integration.sh | bash
• Shader Bundle with Manifest: Tracks bundled vs user-created files using SHA256 hashes
• Welcome Dialog: First-run prompt offering to install both integrations
• Settings UI Tab: New "Integrations" tab (🔌) for managing installations

👤 Profile System

iTerm2-style profiles for saved terminal configurations.

• Profile Manager: Create, edit, delete, and reorder named profiles
• Profile Drawer: Collapsible right-side panel for quick profile access
• Profile Settings: Name, emoji icon, working directory, custom command, tab name override
• Persistence: Profiles saved to ~/.config/par-term/profiles.yaml

📹 Session Logging & Recording

Automatic session logging to record terminal output.

• Multiple Formats: Plain text, HTML (with colors), Asciicast (asciinema-compatible)
• Hotkey Toggle: Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+R to start/stop session recording on demand
• CLI Option: --log-session flag to enable logging at startup

🔳 tmux Integration Enhancements

• Native Status Bar: Session name, window list, and time display at terminal bottom
• Bidirectional Pane Resize: Resizing in par-term updates external tmux clients
• Auto-Close Exited Panes: Panes close when their shell process exits

🔍 Terminal Search

Search through scrollback buffer with Cmd/Ctrl+F.

• Match highlighting with navigation (Enter/Shift+Enter)
• Search options: case sensitive, regex mode, whole word
• Proper Unicode support for multi-byte characters

📋 Paste Special

Transform clipboard content before pasting with Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+V.

• 28 text transformations across shell escaping, case conversion, whitespace, and encoding
• Live preview with keyboard navigation
• Integration with clipboard history via Shift+Enter

⌨️ Option Key as Meta/Esc

Essential feature for emacs/vim users.

• Configure left and right Option/Alt key behavior independently
• Three modes: Normal (special characters), Meta (high bit), Esc (ESC prefix)

🖼️ Shader Gallery

• Browse the Gallery: See all shaders before installing
• Auto-Updated: Gallery automatically deploys when shaders are added or modified

⌨️ Configurable Keybindings

• Custom Bindings: Edit ~/.config/par-term/keybindings.yaml
• Modifier Support: Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Super in any combination

🖥️ CLI Enhancements

• --screenshot <path>: Capture terminal to image file
• --shader <name>: Override background shader on launch
• --exit-after <seconds>: Auto-exit after duration
• --command <cmd>: Run specific command instead of default shell

🪟 Standalone Settings Window

• F12 or Cmd+, (macOS) / Ctrl+, (Linux/Windows) to open
• Settings window stays visible when terminal gains focus

🎨 Per-Shader Configuration System

• Shader metadata in GLSL files, per-shader overrides, global fallback
• Shader hot reload with desktop notifications

🔤 Enhanced Unicode Rendering

• Grapheme clusters (flag emoji, ZWJ sequences, skin tones)
• Geometric box drawing and block elements

🗂️ Tab Bar Enhancements

• 11 color options, per-tab colors, equal-width layout

🔒 Window Transparency

• macOS blur, proper alpha handling, keep_text_opaque option

🎮 Shader System

• Cubemap support, iTimeKeyPress, 9 new shaders

🔋 Power Saving

• pause_shaders_on_blur, pause_refresh_on_blur, unfocused_fps

Multi-Tab Support

• Cmd/Ctrl+T new tab, Cmd/Ctrl+W close tab
• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+[/] or Ctrl+Tab to switch tabs
• Cmd/Ctrl+1-9 direct tab access
• Tab bar with close buttons, activity indicators, bell icons

Multi-Window Support

• Cmd/Ctrl+N new window with independent PTY session
• Each window has its own tabs, scrollback, and state

Native Menu Bar

• Cross-platform menus via muda
• Full keyboard accelerators for all menu items

Custom Shader Enhancements

• Shadertoy-compatible iChannel1-4 texture support
• custom_shader_brightness for better text readability
• cursor_shader_hides_cursor for shader-controlled cursors

Ghostty-Compatible Cursor Shaders

• iCurrentCursor, iPreviousCursor, iCurrentCursorColor, iTimeCursorChange uniforms
• Built-in cursor shaders: sweep, warp, glow, blaze, trail, ripple, boom
• Geometric cursor rendering for all styles

Fixes

• Login shell initialization and environment loading

Power Efficiency

• Event-driven rendering with ControlFlow::Wait
• Smart redraws only when content changes

Stability

• Fixed dropped input during heavy rendering
• parking_lot mutex migration
• Graceful audio fallback

Features

Core Terminal Frontend

• Cross-platform Support: Native performance on macOS (Metal), Linux (Vulkan/X11/Wayland), and Windows (DirectX 12).
• Multi-Window & Multi-Tab: Multiple windows with independent tab sessions per window.
• GPU-Accelerated Rendering: Powered by wgpu with custom glyph atlas for blazing-fast text rasterization.
• Inline Graphics: Full support for Sixel, iTerm2, and Kitty graphics protocols.
• Real PTY Integration: Full pseudo-terminal support for interactive shell sessions.
• Advanced Sequence Support: VT100/VT220/VT320/VT420/VT520 compatibility via par-term-emu-core-rust.
• Intelligent Reflow: Full content reflow on window resize, preserving scrollback and visible state.

Modern UI & Visuals

• Custom GLSL Shaders: 49+ included shaders with hot reload, per-shader config, and cubemap support.
• Background Images: Support for PNG/JPEG backgrounds with configurable opacity and scaling modes.
• Window Transparency: True per-pixel alpha with macOS blur support and text clarity options.
• Visual Bell: Flash-based alerts for terminal bell events.
• Dynamic Themes: Support for iTerm2-style color schemes (Dracula, Monokai, Solarized, etc.).
• Standalone Settings: Dedicated settings window (F12) for live configuration editing.

Typography & Fonts

• Styled Font Variants: Explicit support for separate Bold, Italic, and Bold-Italic font families.
• Unicode Range Mapping: Assign specific fonts to Unicode ranges (perfect for CJK, Emoji, or Symbols).
• Text Shaping: HarfBuzz-powered shaping for ligatures, complex scripts, and emoji sequences.
• Grapheme Clusters: Proper rendering of flag emoji, ZWJ sequences, skin tone modifiers.
• Box Drawing: Geometric rendering for pixel-perfect TUI borders and block characters.
• Smart Fallback: Automatic system font discovery and fallback chain.

Selection & Clipboard

• Advanced Selection: Block/Rectangular, Line-based, and Word-based selection modes.
• Multi-platform Clipboard: Seamless integration with system clipboards via arboard.
• Middle-click Paste: Standard Unix-style middle-click paste support.
• Automatic Copy: Optional "copy on select" behavior.

Hyperlinks & URL Detection

• OSC 8 Support: Native support for application-provided hyperlinks.
• Regex Detection: Automatic detection of URLs in terminal output.
• Interactive Links: Ctrl+Click to open links in your default browser, with hover highlighting and tooltips.

Assistant Panel & ACP Agents

• Assistant Panel: DevTools-style side panel for terminal state inspection and ACP agent chat.
• Bundled + Custom ACP Agents: Built-in agent definitions plus custom agents via config.yaml or ~/.config/par-term/agents/*.toml.
• Per-Agent Environment Variables: Configure local/provider-specific env vars (for example Ollama/OpenRouter endpoints) for each agent.
• Local Claude via Ollama: Supports claude-agent-acp with Ollama Claude-compatible launch mode (see docs/ASSISTANT_PANEL.md).

Content Prettifier

• Auto-Detection: Automatically detects and renders structured content in terminal output — Markdown, JSON, YAML, TOML, XML, CSV, diffs, log files, SQL results, stack traces, and diagrams.
• 11 Built-in Renderers: Each with syntax highlighting, source line mapping, and per-block source/rendered toggling (Ctrl+Shift+P global toggle).
• Diagram Rendering: Mermaid, PlantUML, GraphViz, D2, and 7 more diagram languages with local CLI, Kroki API, and text fallback backends.
• Custom Renderers: Define your own renderers that pipe content through external commands (e.g., bat, pygmentize) with full ANSI color preservation.
• Claude Code Integration: Auto-detects Claude Code sessions, renders markdown and diffs in output, shows format badges on collapsed blocks.
• Configurable: Per-renderer enable/disable, priority ordering, detection rules, clipboard behavior, and profile-level overrides.

Documentation

Getting Started

• Quick Start Guide - Get up and running with custom fonts.
• Examples - Comprehensive configuration examples.

Features

• Keyboard Shortcuts - Complete keyboard shortcut reference.
• Mouse Features - Text selection, URL handling, and pane interaction.
• Semantic History - Click file paths to open in your editor.
• Automation - Regex triggers, actions, and coprocesses.
• Profiles - Profile system for saving terminal configurations.
• Session Logging - Recording sessions in Plain/HTML/Asciicast formats.
• Search - Terminal search with regex, case-sensitive, and whole-word modes.
• Paste Special - 28 clipboard transformations for pasting.
• Copy Mode - Vi-style keyboard-driven text selection and navigation.
• Snippets & Actions - Text snippets with variables, custom actions, and keybinding management.
• Progress Bars - OSC 9;4 and OSC 934 progress bar rendering and shader integration.
• Accessibility - Minimum contrast enforcement and display options.
• Integrations - Shell integration and shader installation system.
• Window Management - Window types, multi-monitor, and transparency.
• Window Arrangements - Save and restore window layouts with auto-restore.
• Command Separators - Horizontal lines between shell commands with exit-code coloring.
• SSH Host Management - SSH quick connect, host discovery, and SSH profiles.
• Status Bar - Configurable status bar with widgets and system monitoring.
• Tabs - Tab management, duplicate tab, and tab behavior.
• Assistant Panel - ACP agent chat, custom agents (UI/TOML/YAML), shader assistant, and Claude+Ollama setup/troubleshooting.
• File Transfers - OSC 1337 file transfers with shell utilities.
• Self-Update - In-place update capability via CLI and Settings UI.
• Content Prettifier - Auto-detect and render markdown, JSON, YAML, diffs, diagrams, and more with custom renderers.
• Debug Logging - Configurable log levels and troubleshooting.

Shaders

• Shader Gallery - Visual gallery of 49+ included shaders with screenshots.
• Shader Reference - Complete list of bundled shaders.
• Custom Shaders Guide - Create custom GLSL shaders with hot reload and per-shader config.
• Compositor Details - Deep dive into the rendering architecture.

Technical

• Architecture Overview - High-level system architecture and components.
• Core Library - Documentation for the underlying terminal engine.

Installation

Homebrew (macOS)

brew install --cask paulrobello/tap/par-term

From Source

Requires Rust 1.85+ (2024 edition) and modern graphics drivers:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/paulrobello/par-term
cd par-term

# Build and run (debug)
cargo run

# Build optimized release version
cargo build --release
./target/release/par-term

# Install Claude ACP bridge for Assistant Panel (Claude connector)
make install-acp

Note: The legacy package @zed-industries/claude-code-acp was renamed/deprecated upstream. Use @zed-industries/claude-agent-acp (claude-agent-acp binary).

macOS Bundle

To create a native macOS .app bundle with a dock icon:

make bundle
make run-bundle

To build and install the app bundle plus the CLI binary and Claude ACP bridge in one step:

make bundle-install

Linux Dependencies

On Linux, you need GTK3 and X11/Wayland libraries. Install the appropriate packages for your distribution:

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libasound2-dev

Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install gtk3-devel libxkbcommon-devel wayland-devel libxcb-devel alsa-lib-devel

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S gtk3 libxkbcommon wayland libxcb alsa-lib

macOS Gatekeeper Notice

If macOS reports that par-term "is damaged and can't be opened", this is caused by the Gatekeeper quarantine attribute applied to unsigned binaries. Remove it with:

# For the release binary
xattr -cr target/release/par-term

# For the .app bundle
xattr -cr /Applications/par-term.app

Note: The Homebrew cask install (brew install --cask paulrobello/tap/par-term) handles this automatically.

Installing Shaders

par-term includes 49+ custom GLSL shaders for background effects and cursor animations. These need to be installed to your config directory.

Built-in Installer (Recommended)

Use the built-in CLI command to download and install all shaders from the latest release:

# Install shaders (with confirmation prompt)
par-term install-shaders

# Install without prompts
par-term install-shaders -y

# Force overwrite existing shaders
par-term install-shaders --force

Shell Script

Alternatively, use the shell script installer:

# Download and run the installer
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulrobello/par-term/main/install_shaders.sh | sh

Or download and run manually:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulrobello/par-term/main/install_shaders.sh
chmod +x install_shaders.sh
./install_shaders.sh

Manual Install

1. Download shaders.zip from the latest release
2. Extract to your config directory:
   • macOS/Linux: ~/.config/par-term/shaders/
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\par-term\shaders\

From Source

If building from source, copy the shaders folder manually:

# macOS/Linux
cp -r shaders ~/.config/par-term/

# Windows (PowerShell)
Copy-Item -Recurse shaders $env:APPDATA\par-term\

Using Shaders

Once installed, enable shaders in your config.yaml:

# Background shader
custom_shader: "starfield.glsl"
custom_shader_enabled: true

# Cursor shader
cursor_shader: "cursor_glow.glsl"
cursor_shader_enabled: true

See the Shader Gallery for previews of all included shaders.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Essential shortcuts to get started. On macOS, keybindings use Cmd; on Linux/Windows, they use Ctrl+Shift to avoid conflicts with terminal control codes.

See the full keyboard shortcuts reference for the complete list, including copy mode, pane management, shader toggles, SSH quick connect, and all customizable keybindings.

Configuration

Configuration is stored in YAML format:

• Unix: ~/.config/par-term/config.yaml
• Windows: %APPDATA%\par-term\config.yaml

cols: 80
rows: 24
font_size: 13.0
font_family: "JetBrains Mono"
theme: "dark-background"
window_opacity: 0.95
scrollbar_position: "right"

# Tab bar settings
tab_bar_mode: "when_multiple"  # always, when_multiple, never
tab_bar_height: 28.0
tab_show_close_button: true
tab_inherit_cwd: true
dim_inactive_tabs: true
inactive_tab_opacity: 0.6

# Transparency settings
keep_text_opaque: true
transparency_affects_only_default_background: true
blur_radius: 8  # macOS only

# Power saving
pause_shaders_on_blur: true
unfocused_fps: 30

# Cursor lock options (prevent apps from overriding)
lock_cursor_visibility: false
lock_cursor_style: false
lock_cursor_blink: false

# Custom shader settings
custom_shader: "starfield.glsl"
custom_shader_enabled: true
shader_hot_reload: true  # Auto-reload on file changes

# Per-shader overrides (optional)
shader_configs:
  starfield.glsl:
    animation_speed: 0.8
    brightness: 0.3

See examples/config-complete.yaml for a full list of options.

Technology

• Terminal Engine: par-term-emu-core-rust
• Graphics: wgpu (WebGPU for Rust)
• Text: swash + rustybuzz (custom glyph atlas)
• UI: egui for settings and overlays
• Windowing: winit
• Async: tokio

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please ensure you run make checkall before submitting any pull requests.

make fmt       # Format code
make lint      # Run clippy
make test      # Run test suite
make checkall  # Run all of the above

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Paul Robello - probello@gmail.com

Links

• GitHub: https://github.com/paulrobello/par-term
• Core Library: https://github.com/paulrobello/par-term-emu-core-rust