[SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

lharding · 2017-11-21 23:52:36

The subject line says it all, really. Is there one out there? I'm talking about the kind you enable with

URxvt*.transparent: True

in your .Xresources, that just shows a dimmed version of the root window pixmap behind the terminal content (as opposed to setting the window's opacity and making things hard to read by showing through the window behind the terminal).

Sorry if this is a FAQ/LMGTFY but I haven't turned up much in my own periodic research.

Last edited by lharding (2017-11-27 02:25:37)

2ManyDogs · 2017-11-22 00:46:05

I use aterm. It has pseudotransparency. It's slightly lighter than urxvt, but it's an AUR package and the source is no longer in active development (I prefer the term "feature complete", but it might be a deal breaker for you).

Why are you looking for a urxvt replacement?

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2017-11-22 00:49:09)

circleface · 2017-11-22 00:51:29

I know it doesn't exactly fit your requirements, but https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Termite might be worth looking in to. Also, have you tried xterm? xterm is very configurable and might satisfy your requirements a bit better.

Trilby · 2017-11-22 00:59:25

It is a bit hard to know what satisfies the requirements as all that's really been stated is that it be like rxvt but not rxvt.

I'm not familiar with termite, but xterm seems like a very poor match here: by nearly any metric it is less "minimalist" than rxvt and it lacks the one feature desired.

I think 2ManyDogs's question needs to be addressed before this can go anywhere: why not rxvt?

circleface · 2017-11-22 01:04:46

Trilby wrote:

I'm not familiar with termite, but xterm seems like a very poor match here: by nearly any metric it is less "minimalist" than rxvt and it lacks the one feature desired.

Hmm, I always thought Xterm could do transparency. I must have been using rxvt then. Sorry for the noise

lharding · 2017-11-22 01:30:06

Why not u?rxvt:

- un-ergonomic search feature that locks term and doesn't highlight complete match
- keyboard selection is wonky and can't grab to clipboard (only primary selection)
- perl-based customization isn't preferable to me and my dislike of perl

What I'd miss from urxvt:

- client/server mechanism (maybe? People claim it doesn't make a difference but I disagree)
- Xresources based configs
- True support of bitmapped fonts with yet still support of fallback glyphs, etc

I hope that helps?

Trilby · 2017-11-22 03:01:21

It sounds like you just need to configure urxvt to your liking:

lharding wrote:

un-ergonomic search feature that locks term and doesn't highlight complete match

I use urxvt and almost everything I do on a computer is in a urxvt window - but I don't have a clue what this searching is: you can use tmux/screen for alternative options for searching in the scrollback buffer if that's what you mean.

lharding wrote:

keyboard selection is wonky and can't grab to clipboard (only primary selection)

incorrect. If you don't like to do this with perl, just use a clipboard manager that syncronizes the selections.

lharding wrote:

perl-based customization isn't preferable to me and my dislike of perl

I share that dislike - but I have disabled all such elements of urxvt. None of them serve any useful purpose anyways - especially if your goal is a minimalist terminal.

So an alternative solution: use urxvt, but disable the perl extensions, configure selection handling to your liking, and consider tmux/screen for what they do well and just let your terminal emulator be a terminal emulator.

lharding · 2017-11-26 22:38:18

Trilby wrote:

I share that dislike - but I have disabled all such elements of urxvt. None of them serve any useful purpose anyways - especially if your goal is a minimalist terminal.
...
So an alternative solution: use urxvt, but disable the perl extensions, configure selection handling to your liking, and consider tmux/screen for what they do well and just let your terminal emulator be a terminal emulator.

Sometimes the actual answer to a question like this is so blindlingly obvious...of *course* I can just strip urxvt down to nothing - I think I even saw somebody's ultra-lean build kicking around AUR a while back. Of *course* I can make tmux/dvtm/etc do what I need easily. Why did I think tmux wouldn't have all those features? Ten minutes of experimentation tells me it can do everything I want (yes I mean scrollback search and selection, for my two biggest complaints with urxvt).

Anyway thanks, I'm off to have a `man tmux` and `vim .tmux.conf` rampage.

2ManyDogs · 2017-11-27 00:23:05

Please remember to mark your thread [SOLVED] (edit the title of your first post).

Arch Linux

#1 2017-11-21 23:52:36

[SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#2 2017-11-22 00:46:05

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#3 2017-11-22 00:51:29

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#4 2017-11-22 00:59:25

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#5 2017-11-22 01:04:46

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#6 2017-11-22 01:30:06

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#7 2017-11-22 03:01:21

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#8 2017-11-26 22:38:18

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

#9 2017-11-27 00:23:05

Re: [SOLVED] Minimalist terminal emulator with "fake" transparency?

Board footer