Contour - A modern C++ Terminal Emulator

IMPORTANT: THIS PROJECT IS IN ALPHA STAGE & ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT

contour

Features

• ✅ Available on all 3 major platforms, Linux, OS/X, Windows.
• ✅ Unicode: Emoji support (-: 🌈 💝 😛 👪 - including ZWJ, VS15, VS16 emojis :-)
• ✅ Unicode: Grapheme cluster support
• ✅ Font ligatures support (such as in Fira Code).
• ✅ Bold and italic fonts
• ✅ GPU-accelerated rendering.
• ✅ Vertical Line Markers (quickly jump to markers in your history!)
• ✅ Blurred behind transparent background when using Windows 10 or KDE window manager on Linux.
• ✅ Runtime configuration reload
• ✅ 256-color and Truecolor support
• ✅ Key binding customization
• ✅ Color Schemes
• ✅ Profiles (grouped customization of: color scheme, login shell, and related behaviours)
• ✅ Synchronized rendering (via

  DECSM 2026

  /

  DECRM 2026

  )
• ✅ Conditionally block text reflow (via

  DECSM 2027

  /

  DECRM 2027

  )
• ✅ Clickable hyperlinks via OSC 8
• ✅ Clipboard setting via OSC 52
• ✅ Sixel inline images

CLI - Command Line Interface

Usage: contour [options]
Contour Terminal Emulator

Options:
  -h, --help            Displays this help.
  -v, --version         Displays version information.
  -c, --config    Path to configuration file to load at startup
                        [~/.config/contour/contour.yml].
  -p, --profile   Terminal Profile to load.

Example Configuration File

word_delimiters: " /\\()\"'-.,:;<>[email protected]#$%^&*+=[]{}~?|│"
default_profile: ubuntu_vm
profiles:
    ubuntu_vm:
        shell: "ssh ubuntu-vm"
        terminal_size:
            columns: 130
            lines: 30
        environment:
            TERM: xterm-256color
            COLORTERM: truecolor
        font:
            size: 12
            render_mode: lcd
            regular: "Fira Code"
            bold: "Fira Code:style=bold"
            italic: "Hack:style=italic"
            bold_italic: "Hack:style=bold italic"
            emoji: "emoji"
        tab_width: 8
        history:
            limit: 8000
            scroll_multiplier: 3
            auto_scroll_on_update: true
        cursor:
            shape: block
            blinking: true
        background:
            opacity: 0.9
            blur: false
        colors: google_dark

color_schemes:
    google_dark:
        cursor: '#b0b030'
        selection: '#30c0c0'
        default:
            background: '#1d1f21'
            foreground: '#c5c8c6'
        normal:
            black:   '#1d1f21'
            red:     '#cc342b'
            green:   '#198844'
            yellow:  '#fba922'
            blue:    '#3971ed'
            magenta: '#a36ac7'
            cyan:    '#3971ed'
            white:   '#c5c8c6'
        bright:
            black:   '#969896'
            red:     '#cc342b'
            green:   '#198844'
            yellow:  '#fba922'
            blue:    '#3971ed'
            magenta: '#a36ac7'
            cyan:    '#3971ed'
            white:   '#ffffff'
input_mapping:
    - { mods: [Alt],            key: Enter,         action: ToggleFullscreen }
    - { mods: [Control, Alt],   key: S,             action: ScreenshotVT }
    - { mods: [Control, Shift], key: Equal,         action: IncreaseFontSize }
    - { mods: [Control, Shift], key: Minus,         action: DecreaseFontSize }
    - { mods: [Control, Shift], key: N,             action: NewTerminal }
    - { mods: [Control],        mouse: WheelUp,     action: IncreaseFontSize }
    - { mods: [Control],        mouse: WheelDown,   action: DecreaseFontSize }
    - { mods: [Alt],            mouse: WheelUp,     action: IncreaseOpacity }
    - { mods: [Alt],            mouse: WheelDown,   action: DecreaseOpacity }
    - { mods: [Control],        key: '0',           action: ResetFontSize }
    - { mods: [Shift],          mouse: WheelUp,     action: ScrollPageUp }
    - { mods: [Shift],          mouse: WheelDown,   action: ScrollPageDown }
    - { mods: [],               mouse: WheelUp,     action: ScrollUp }
    - { mods: [],               mouse: WheelDown,   action: ScrollDown }
    - { mods: [Shift],          key: UpArrow,       action: ScrollOneUp }
    - { mods: [Shift],          key: DownArrow,     action: ScrollOneDown }
    - { mods: [Shift],          key: PageUp,        action: ScrollPageUp }
    - { mods: [Shift],          key: PageDown,      action: ScrollPageDown }
    - { mods: [Shift],          key: Home,          action: ScrollToTop }
    - { mods: [Shift],          key: End,           action: ScrollToBottom }
    - { mods: [Alt, Shift],     key: 'k',           action: ScrollMarkUp }
    - { mods: [Alt, Shift],     key: 'j',           action: ScrollMarkDown }
logging:
    file: "/path/to/contour.log"
    parse_errors: true
    invalid_output: true
    unsupported_output: true
    raw_input: false
    raw_output: false
    trace_input: false
    trace_output: false

Installing from source

Prerequisites Linux

This is tested on Ubuntu 19.04, but any recent Linux with latest C++17 compiler should do:

sudo apt install \
    "g++-9" cmake libfreetype6-dev qtbase5-dev libqt5gui5 extra-cmake-modules \
    libfontconfig1-dev libharfbuzz-dev

To enable blur-behind feature on transparent background, you'll need the following packages:

sudo apt install libkf5windowsystem-dev

And set pass

-DCONTOUR_BLUR_PLATFORM_KWIN=ON

In case you want to improve performance slightly and run at at least Linux, you can add

-DLIBTERMINAL_EXECUTION_PAR=ON

libtbb-dev

Prerequisites Windows 10

For Windows, you must have Windows 10, 2018 Fall Creators Update, and Visual Studio 2019, installed. It will neither build nor run on any prior Windows OS, due to libterminal making use of ConPTY API.

vcpkg install freetype fontconfig harfbuzz qt5-base

Prerequisites Mac OS/X

brew install freetype fontconfig harfbuzz boost qt5

References

• VT510: VT510 Manual, see Chapter 5.
• ECMA-35: Character Code Structure and Extension Techniques
• ECMA-43: 8-bit Coded Character Set Structure and Rules
• ECMA-48: Control Functions for Coded Character Sets
• ISO/IEC 8613-6: Character content architectures
• xterm: xterm control sequences
• console_codes Linux console codes
• Summary of ANSI standards for ASCII terminals
• Text Terminal HOWTO (Chapter 7.2, PTY)

License

Contour - A modern C++ Terminal Emulator
-------------------------------------------

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.