Main place for discussions about U++ cross platform development framework.
Bobcat, a cross-platform terminal emulator
Hi, I am happy to announce that I have finally made the Bobcat terminal emulator public. While the foundations (U++ & TerminalCtrl) are solid, the app itself is new (and Bobcat is also meant to be a U++ tech demo), It is still under development, and the github repo is under construction. Stay tuned for more news. Happy new year to everone! Best regards, Oblivion
Re: Bobcat, a cross-platform terminal emulator
Hi İsmail Very interesting. In terms of using your programme, what are its advantages over the Windows terminal?
Hello Iñaki, For one, the underlying vte(TerminalCtrl) is much more powerful (in terms of vt compatibility and recognized escape sequences, including mouse i/o). This is especially important if you are using WSL or working on a remote connection to linux machines, where many console applications expoit the VT sequences. Bobcat is basically like having a modernized xterm on Windows (as you might already know, TerminalCtrl has a very high score on that -xterm & DEC/ANSI- compatibility scale.) Unlike Windows Terminal (AFAIK), it can also run on Windows 7 & 8, if the latest U++ still can (didn't try to run it on Win < 10 since the end of 2022). It has a much smaller memory footprint. But let's change the question a little bit: What would you like to see implemented? I am open to suggestions and feature requests. In the meantime, I am going to add an Upp::Esc (not to be confused wiht ESC sequences) based macro system (for automation) and a "lite" plugin system for expansion. Also when I finalize the first release of Bobcat, I am going to publish its sibling: Tomcat (a dedicated SSH terminal, which will have a virtually identical UI & interchangeable profiles etc.). Best regards,
Thank you İsmail. My query was just out of curiosity, I am a basic terminal user, at most printf() in colour and simple .bat files.
Hi, Bobcat has gained a navigator. What is navigator? Bobcat uses a stack-based interface (instead of tabs), so only one terminal is visible at a time and terminals can be nagivated using the arrow & hom/end keys AND/OR terminal menu. This is to reduce UI clutter. But sometimes the users might want to see an overview of the open terminals. Navigator does just that. It shows an overview of all the open terminals and lets basic actions on terminals via the overviews. A screenshot: Best regards, Oblivion
Happy new year to everyone! Another round of updates for Bobcat is here. 1) Navigator is refactored & improved. 2) Command line handling is improved and options are expanded, as follows: Usage: bobcat [OPTIONS] -- [COMMAND...] General options: -h, --help Show help. -l, --list List available profiles. -p, --profile PROFILE Run with the given PROFILE (Names are case-sensitive). -s, --settings Open settings window. -b, --show-bars Show the menu and title bar. -B, --hide-bars Hide the menu and title bar. --show-menubar Show the menu bar. --hide-menubar Hide the menu bar. --show-titlebar Show the title bar. --hide-titlebar Hide the title bar. Environment options: -k, --keep Don't close the terminal on exit. -K, --dont-keep Close the terminal on exit. -n, --no-environment Don't inherit the environment. -d, --working-dir PATH Set the working directory to PATH. -f, --fullscreen Full screen mode. -m, --maximize Maximize the window. -g, --geometry GEOMETRY Set the initial window geometry. (E.g. 80x24, 132x24) Emulation options: -q, --vt-style-fkeys Use VT-style function keys. -Q, --pc-style-fkeys Use PC-style function keys. -w, --window-reports Enable window reports. -W, --no-window-reports Disable window reports. -a, --window-actions Enable window actions. -A, --no-window-actions Disable window actions. --hyperlinks Enable hyperlink detection (OSC 52). --no-hyperlinks Disable hyperlink detection. --inline-images Enable inline images support (sixel, iterm2, jexer). --no-inline-images Disable inline images support. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat is now available via UppHub. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat has gained a crucial feature: text search and highlighting: This requires the latest version of TerminalCtrl that has search and highlight ability. Currently it is a simple text search, but in the following weeks it will include other search types (regex, etc.) Best regards, Oblivion
what are its advantages over the Windows terminal? A further answer to this question would be that Bobcat will also include the "web" component (our TURTLE, of course). I believe Windows Terminal - and most of them out there- still can't do this. Deploy bobcat on your server, behind a login screen and access it anywhere, using any modern web browser. Below is a screenshot of bobcat "on" gnome web and firefox. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi Oblivion, I finally convinced myself to try Bobcat, after you added the makefile, which made it super simple for me (I don't have U++ installed, what a shame) I have to say that it look and feels great! I've been thinking about using different terminal for quite a long time, but couldn't find any I'd really like, but Bobcat might be what I was waiting for. While experimenting with it, I've found a couple small bugs and typos. Is it OK to just drop them in github issues? Or do you prefer some other communication (forum, PM, ...)? Oh, and one more question: What is the file browser in the screenshot? It looks a little like nnn, which I sometimes use, but I've never seen it showing images. Best regards, Honza
Hello Honza, Thank you very much for trying Bobcat and giving feedback! It is a work in progress and I'd like to shape it according to our users' need, as it is intended to be both a standalone app and a tech demo for U++. I'd highly appreciate feedback, bug reports, suggestions, and your opinion. Please feel free to use github to submit any bug reports, enhancement request and further suggestions. I'll reply/look into them ASAP. As for the browser: Ranger. It supports inline images via iterm2's protocol, which TerminalCtrl also supports. Best regards, İsmail
Hi, Another round of updates. Many bugs have been fixed in both Bobcat and TerminalCtrl (Thanks Honza (dolik-rce)!) Also Finder, the search bar of Bobcat, has received some significant upgrades: - Finder is now a frame instead of a dialog. This way, each terminal can have its own search bar and settings. - Three search modes are implemented: 1) Case sensitive search mode. 2) Case insensitive search mode. 3) Regex-based (PCRE) search mode. - All search modes have the ability to move among the found strings. - Finder has its own keyboard shortcuts group in the shortcuts manager and each shortcut can be configured by the user. - And lot more... A screenshot of Finder, running on regex mode: Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, After some delay, Bobcat has gained a cool new feature: A customizable hyperlink maker called "Linkifier". (Taken from the github): - It is now possible to set multiple patterns to be detected and treated as hyperlinks. - Linkifier has a per-profile settings. So in each profile the user can have different set of patterns. Patterns can be set via the profile settings -> Linkifier tab or directly via the .profile file. - At this time the links are opened by the Upp's own launcher. But I have already made it possible to configure and set a separate command for each linkifier pattern. i.e. in the following days Bobcat will gain the ability to set the launcher per hyperlink pattern. Best regards, Oblivion
Here is a short video demonstrating the basic capabilities of Bobcat, the terminal emulator (based on TerminalCtrl): https://vimeo.com/999236026 What is demonstrated in the video, you may ask? 1 - Running Doom in terminal emulator 2 - Navigating the open terminals, using the Navigator. 3 - Using the Finder to find text. 4 - Navigating through the open terminals using l/r keys. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat now officially supports Turtle (web) mode. Though, it is experimental. If you are using UppHub, and TheIDE, just select the WEBGUI compilation mode via TheIDE. If you are building it using the makefile, the following make command will create a TURTLE-based Bobcat. make build-web Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, With the refactored PtyProcess class of TerminalCtrl, Bobcat has gained a new feature, specifically in Windows environemnt: - On windows, it is now possible to select a pty process type (either WinPty, or ConPty) for each profile, on-the-fly, and both pty implementations are available at the same time. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Since Bobcat ise getting closer and closer to its first release, it sure needed an icon. So here it is, Bobcat now officially has an icon! Notice that there is another goodie in the background that will be published (with TerminalCtrl's next release). It is called TerminalTools package. As it names suggest, it was made for testing TerminalCtrl, but now I decided to publish it as a terminal tools package. It is pretty light-weight, yet it can be used to build text user interfaces (TUI), or prettify your console apps. Stay tuned. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Among many improvements before the official beta release of Bobcat (in binary, dist. package (AUR) and source form for Windows & Linux), here is a new one. Bobcat now uses MessageCtrl to utilize passive in-app notifications (note that stuttering is due to the gif, normally the animations are smooth): Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat Updated: - Bobcat's Navigator is now using a dynamic layout. - MacOS build errors fixed. - Navigator items now display the status of the terminal on exit, using a simple blinking icon animation: - Question icon -> Terminal is asking for user input. - Exclamation icon -> Terminal command is failed and asking for user input. - Error icon -> Terminal command is failed. (non interactive) - Success icon -> Terminal command has successfully completed. (non-interactive) Here's a gif: Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat has gained three little but useful feature: 1 - Selected terminal text is copied to Finder, if Finder is opened afterwards the selection. 2 - User can open the current working directory in the default file manager via a menu item or keyboard shortcut(default: Alt+Shift+O). This feature requires shell integration. 3 - It is now possible to toggle window frames (titlebar, borders, size-grip etc.). Suited for tiling window managers. Best regards, Oblivion
Well, I've looked into the latest hyped terminal in terminal "scene": ghostty. It is definitely a good terminal with some good performance benchmarks, no doubt about that, since it uses shaders, while Bobcat don't. Still, a basic find command on linux with same page and font size below is the average result of 10 repeats in scroll performance (command: time find /usr/share): ghostty: real 0m0,843s user 0m0,217s sys 0m0,626s Bobcat: real 0m0,788s user 0m0,198s sys 0m0,583s While the memory consumption is: ghostty: 158.8 MiB Bobcat: 20.3 MiB Definitely, on some graphics performance ghostty will beat Bobcat, due to its direct access to GPU (which I don't care, terminals don't really need 60FPS anyway) but I really do think Bobcat goes somewhat underappreciated, given its features and ease of use. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat's Navigator (overview mode) has gained some useful functionality and further polished. 1. Navigator: It is now possible to swap the position of terminals via overview mode. E.g. you can reorder them. (This functionality requires the updated StackCtrl, be sure to check it first). 2. Navigator: It is now possible to change key bindings of Navigator. ESC and RETURN are fixed keys. All others are (and will be) configurable. 3. Navigator: It is now possible to paste clips to terminals via Navigator. Just drag and drop your text & path onto the target terminal. 4. Navigator: Performance improvement by avoiding unnecessary synching the items. Best regards, Oblivion
Further Navigator refinements: Navigator: Drop operations now highlights the target terminal. Navigator: Swapping terminals now show a cool slide animation. DnD screenshot: Best regards, Oblivion
Fun fact: If you are using the yazi command-line file manager on Linux, you can simply read (as is) your whole pdf files (not only previews) "in" Bobcat. Just enable the inline-images option and have fun. Best regards, Oblivion
Bobcat, running yazi, a TUI file manager for linux/windows, in borderless/frameless mode (this mode is best suitable for tiling window managers): Best regards, Oblivion
Looks awesome! Congrats
Hello Oblivion, you already compared Bobcat to other Terminal emulators, thank you for these comparisons. I would love to see how it also compares to Terminology. I'm sure you can find the comparison interesting, and maybe there are some inspirations to take there! Kind regards Lionel
Hell Daniel, Quote: Looks awesome! Congrats Smile Thanks, it is indeed getting better by the day. A good terminal emulator and U++ tech demo. Best regards, Oblivion
Hello Lionel, Quote: Hello Oblivion, you already compared Bobcat to other Terminal emulators, thank you for these comparisons. I would love to see how it also compares to Terminology. I'm sure you can find the comparison interesting, and maybe there are some inspirations to take there! Kind regards Lionel I think it would be better if I compile some statistics across the terminal emulator "scene". Maybe I'll do that later. As for Terminology, I'll do a more detailed comparison (feature set & performance) later, but here is a "sneak-peek" version: I've run extremely demanding notcurses demos on both Bobcat & Terminology. Below are the results: Note: Page size, font (Maple mono) and font size (13) is the same for both of the emulators. However, it seems that Terminology doesn't support true color mode (or I couldn't find any settings for it), while Bobcat has true color mode. So, I have to run the benchmark/demo set in 256 color mode (TERM=xterm-256color): Bobcat is on the left, and Terminology is on the right: Also the average results of 10 rounds of "time /find/usr/share" command (write and scrolling performance, with a scrollback buffer of 1024 lines on both terminal emulators): Bobcat: real 0m0,830s user 0m0,188s sys 0m0,632s Terminology: real 0m1,120s user 0m0,159s sys 0m0,710s It is not bad, is it? Best regards, Oblivion
Hello Oblivion, I just want to ask. Do you have any plans to create Flatpak for Bobcat? I think it will help with your application adoption and it can allow for easy installation on Linux. Publishing Flatpak on Flathub is not, so hard Klugier
Quote: Hello Oblivion, I just want to ask. Do you have any plans to create Flatpak for Bobcat? I think it will help with your application adoption and it can allow for easy installation on Linux. Publishing Flatpak on Flathub is not, so hard Smile Hello Klugier, Yes, I do have plan to publish a flatpak (also an AUR package, and a simple zip file for windows binaries). Since you are experienced in flatpak builds, I may ask for your help/guidance too. Best regards, Oblivion
Quote: Hello Oblivion, you already compared Bobcat to other Terminal emulators, thank you for these comparisons. I would love to see how it also compares to Terminology. I'm sure you can find the comparison interesting, and maybe there are some inspirations to take there! Kind regards Lionel Another benchmark comparison between Bobcat, Terminology and Alacritty. This ones using the Doom Fire demo. Videos (page sizes & font face & sizes are the same): Bobcat vs. ghostty (avg. 430 fps vs. 380 fps.) Bobcat vs. Terminology (avg. 460 fps. vs. 290 fps.) Bobcat vs. Alacritty (avg. 460 fps. vs. 670 fps.) The reason why I used this demo as a benchmark is Mitchell Hashimoto (ghostty's famous developer) uses it as a reference. See his X post for the context. I think Bobcat is certainly not the fastest (nor it aims to be) but a reasonably fast and feature-rich, modern terminal. Best regards, Oblivion
A fast development week for Bobcat. Bobcat has gained a new cool feature: QuickText. What is QuickText? It is a pop-up list that lets you store and quickly insert frequently used commands or text snippets into the terminal using a simple keyboard shortcut. Default keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + Space. Next step will be autocomplete. But the development of it will start after this months first official release. A screenshot: Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, As of today and with this githup PR, you can use Bobcat with TheIDE, if Bobcat is installed in your system (currently it supports linux, bsd & flatpak. (Windows will soon follow.) Since there is no official installer (yet), you'll have to manually copy the bobcat executable to the "/usr/bin" (linux), /usr/local/bin" (bsd), "/run/host/bin" (flatpak). Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, With the latest update to TerminalCtrl/PtyProcess, Bobcat can now run proper TUI tools with all their bells and whistles on Windows (which is still a rare trait among Terminal emulators ) Here's a gif, Bobcat running yazi file manager with image preview support on windows: Best regards, Oblivion
Oblivion wrote on Thu, 13 February 2025 11:41 Hi, With the latest update to TerminalCtrl/PtyProcess, Bobcat can now run proper TUI tools with all their bells and whistles on Windows (which is still a rare trait among Terminal emulators ) Awesome. This really is a game changer on Windows. Great work! Keep up the improvements!
Hi, Today marks the first official release of Bobcat (v0.9.0). Currently, only the Windows builds are available in binary form (one uses the default but outdated conpty, and the other (openconsole) uses the new version of conpty/conhost (for modern terminal apps). However, I intend to extend this to Linux via both FlatPak and distro packages (first one will be for archlinux AUR). Any help with packaging for other distros would be very much appreciated. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat v0.9.1 is released: Service Release includes an important bugfix and some small improvements: CmdArg: Command handling is fixed. CmdArg: Font listing and face & size setting are now possible. (Related new options: list-fonts, font-family, and font-size) On Windows, simply download the zip file, extract it, and run Bobcat. On *NIX variants, you can use the fast makefile, umk, or TheIDE to compile Bobcat. The next release of Bobcat will also include an Arch Linux/Pacman package (on GitHub) and, eventually, a Flatpak version. Since Bobcat can use the re-written version of ConHost on Windows (OpenConsole.exe), it now supports many features that were previously exclusive to *NIX systems, out of the box. For example, you can now run NeoVim and Yazi (an awesome terminal file manager) on Bobcat's Windows builds. Here's a screenshot: Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, I am planning to add a macro interface to Bobcat (using Upp::Esc). If you think there should be a specific set of functions & functionality in the public macro API, let me know. I am willing to discuss possible drafts. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, As of today, Bobcat is finally available on ArchLinux via AUR: Just use your favorite AUR installer to download and install Bobcat: yay -S bobcat-terminal-git Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, One upcoming feature of Bobcat is the ability to check and warn against privilege escalation on Linux. If enabled, Bobcat will warn the user whenever an app attempts to escalate privileges (i.e., tries to become root). It will also warn on terminal exit if any terminal is root (and cannot be killed unless the user is also root or operating at the same level. Screenshot: Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat version 0.9.2 is released. (Windows users can download the binary executable as a zip file). It has some nice features and bug-fixes. - Root detection on Linux: Bobcat can now detect privilege escalation and warn the user accordingly. (2a41e02) - Event loop optimized: Bobcat now uses a highly optimized event loop, thanks to the new ProcessWaitEvent class. (3b92c4b) - Adjustable event timeout: It is now possible to set the PTY event wait timeout via the settings. (dc2294c) - QuickText refactored: QuickText module now has a type system, allowing separation between text, commands, and scripts. (e5f15a7) - PATH detection: Added a profile option to append Bobcat's exe directory to PATH variable. (60d088f) Screenshot: My next move will be in the direction of enabling semantic prompts and related features. Adding scripting/plugin (Esc-based) interface, and of course more bug-fixes. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, As you may already know, Upp now has direct wayland support, meaning it is possible to enable or disable wayland mode in run-time. As usual, Bobcat followed the suit after TheIDE and implemented the wayland option as an experimental feature (can be found in the git main branch from now on). Since it is experimental, expect bugs. Best regads, Oblivion
Hi, If you are on Gnome Desktop and using terminal emulators a lot,the nautilus-open-any-terminal extension can simplify opening terminals in a specified directory, etc. Bobcat is now officially supported by the extension. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat improvements and new features: - Parallel search: Bobcat can now utiilze multithreaded parallel search. In that case the search limit will apply per-thread (e.g. if the limit is 64K items, it will be a per-thread constraint). Parallel search works best on large buffers or when there are more than 64K items to search. - Unified and optimized highlighting: This is an under-the-hood improvement. Bobcat now uses a unified highlighting system. This will allow easy implementation of any type of highlighting in the future. - Navigator: Now warns user about root access (Linux specific). We are very close to 0.9.3 Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat 0.9.3 is released. What's Changed: - Root access warning now shows process name (linux). - Highlighting unified & optimized. - Finder: Parallelized (multithreaded) search option added - works best when searching more than 64K items. - Navigator now warns on root access. - Smart selection pattern persistence problem fixed. - Runtime switch to enable Wayland on GTK backend (experimental!) Navigator, warning on privilege escalation: As always, windows binaries are available on the release page. If you are going to update Bobcat manually be sure to update TerminalCtrl to the latest revision first.
Hi, "Shape of things to come" for the next versions of Bobcat (likely from 0.9.4 and on): Yep, that is splitter support. I opted for a simple and maintainable approach: Max 2 (horz/vert) panes per splitter, no insane splitter trees. IME I never needed more than two anyway... Also "terminal swapping" will -hopefully- still work. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat has finally gained a spilt-screen (splitter) mode. Currently it supports: - Max 2 panes - Horizontal or vertical orientation, flippable via a keyboard shortcut. - All keyboard shortcuts (for navigation or, for launching new pane from the active terminal or the available profiles) - Allows terminal swapping. This means that you can swap splitter panes with any other existing terminal (currently only via Navigator). Video demo: https://github.com/ismail-yilmaz/Bobcat/issues/36#issuecomme nt-2973733642 Screenshot: It is available in github main now (and ArchLinux AUR), and will be officially available with version 0.9.4 Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat v. 0.9.4 is released. Split-Screen (Splitter) Support Bobcat 0.9.4 introduces powerful split-screen support while staying true to its stacked-display philosophy. With this release, you can now view **up to two terminals at once** using a flexible splitter interface, while still managing your terminal stack just as before. - Split orientation can be toggled **on the fly**: horizontal (top/bottom) or vertical (side-by-side). - You can **swap** the two panes or **any open terminal with any splitter pane** at any time. Preview: Enjoy! Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat 0.9.5 is out. This is a maintenance release that fixes two issues affecting the split-screen functionality. - Splitter panes can now be transparent. - Stacked terminals are now properly displayed when the stack transition animation is disabled. You can download the latest version via UppHub or its github page (Which includes windows binaries). Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat version 0.9.6 is released. + Added mouse wheel support for font zoom (ea29310) + Progress notification protocol support across all available platforms (OSC 9;4) (2d4399a) See the screencast on the release page for a short demo of progress notification mechanism. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, As we move toward the next release, Bobcat has gained a new and useful feature: Web Search. This works similarly to the feature in TheIDE: selected text can be searched on the web using configurable providers. Web search is a per-profile setting, and each profile can have multiple providers. Setting up a provider is straightforward. For example: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s It also works on Selector Mode. Best regards, Oblivion
Ok, I would like to ask you all U++ users, I am going to utilize the Core/SSH package in Bobcat. Which route shall I take?
Hi Oblivion, What exactly do you have in mind, when you talk about adding SSH support in bobcat? I already use it with ssh <host> as a command and it works just fine The only situation where I can imagine some advantage from having ssh implemented in the terminal itself is probably on windows, where it might make things a bit simpler to set up. Best regards, Honza
Hello Honza, Quote: The only situation where I can imagine some advantage from having ssh implemented in the terminal itself is probably on windows, where it might make things a bit simpler to set up. Exactly. In linux I don't need such a feature. But I'm getting some requests lately to implement this feature for at least Windows. However, it can be also useful in other environments. (Core/SSH has the advantage of being noticably faster when working with heavy TUI apps.). And embedding SSH2 directly into Bobcat is easy. In fact, a working prototype can be seen here. However, I personally prefer the second option: Using Bobcat's code base to write a drop-in replacement that will exclusively work with SSH (maybe we should call it "Tomcat"). IMO this would be the better option for maintenance. Best regards, Obliviion
Well, if there is a chance for faster/more stable/better user experience, then I'm not opposed to such feature being implemented directly in bobcat. Or you could just create a general CLI ssh client for windows, which could be distributed with bobcat, so any windows user could use ssh.exe as a command in bobcat profile Honza
Hello Honza, dolik.rce wrote on Mon, 22 September 2025 15:15 Well, if there is a chance for faster/more stable/better user experience, then I'm not opposed to such feature being implemented directly in bobcat. Or you could just create a general CLI ssh client for windows, which could be distributed with bobcat, so any windows user could use ssh.exe as a command in bobcat profile Honza I've considered this option (a CLI app) before, but it comes with a major drawback, one that's IMO essentially a deal breaker: *Interactive* CLI apps can only run inside ConPTY (i.e., on a console). They can't run as a regular local process if they want to stay interactive. This means they're constrained by ConPTY's questionable design. ConPTY/Conhost is not only slow but also restrictive and picky about which escape codes it allows through. (IIRC, this is one of the reasons why PuTTY still exists on Windows. Speaking of PuTTY, using Core/SSL/SshShell directly with TerminalCtrl is noticably faster, even compared to PuTTY's own SSH2 connections.) So, yet another SSH CLI app probably wouldn't perform any better than the OS/OpenSSL-provided one. The first option (embedding SshShell into Bobcat) would make the codebase only slightly more complex. Surprisingly, the main challenge wouldn't be the SSH implementation itself. That part is straightforward. (I've wrapped each SshShell worker thread in an `APtyProcess`, and the resulting PTY code is just ~100 LoC. Honestly, I should probably turn that into a tutorial, it's quite handy.) The real complexity would lie in managing prompts and profile-related GUI. The second option ("Tomcat"), on the other hand, would leave Bobcat untouched and instead create a sibling app with SSH-only support (exposed as `SshShellProcess` for clean integration). With this option we can even import/export the same profile files for both apps. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Happy to announce the release of Bobcat 0.9.7. This version introduces new features and several improvements. What's Changed: - Added Web Search Module You can now define a list of web search providers for each terminal profile. Selected text can be searched on the web via a customizable menu or a keyboard shortcut (for the default provider). The default web search provider can also be invoked in Selector Mode. - Privilege Elevation Check Bobcat now detects and warns the user if it's launched with elevated privileges (i.e., as administrator on Windows or root on POSIX systems). This behavior is enabled by default. - macOS Dock Menu Support - Debian package for Ubuntu 25.04 Ubuntu package (deb) has finally arrived. Hopefully it will simplify trying Bobcat on Debian/Ubuntu systems. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Starting with Bobcat 0.9.7, the headless build of Bobcat is now officially supported! What's "headless" Bobcat? It's the SDL2GUI version, meaning Bobcat runs on an SDL2 framebuffer, instead of relying on a desktop environment or GUI toolkit. Perfect for low-resource systems, embedded setups, or servers. AFAIK, this makes Bobcat one of the most -if not the most- advanced terminal emulators capable of running directly on a framebuffer. Right now it's available on Arch Linux via AUR (deb package will soon follow). You can install it easily with your favorite AUR helper, for example: #yay -S bobcat-terminal-headless-git However, please note that standard version and headless version are mutually exclusive packages. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, Bobcat, cross-platform terminal emulator v0.9.8 is released . This release focuses on improving usability, stability, and maintainability. ## **Changes and Fixes** ### **Reverse Wrap Persistence** * Fixed an issue where **reverse wrap mode** did not persist correctly across sessions. ### **Bell Notifications** * Added a new **screen flash option** for users who prefer visual alerts instead of sound. ### **New terminal modes** * Added in-band resize notification mode (`DECSET`, private mode 2048) * Added `DECSET` private mode 30 (urxvt, show/hide scrollbar) * Added `DECSET` mode 40 (allow/disallow 80 -> 132 columns). ### **Improved pty event handling on Windows** * `PtyWaitEvent` refactored and fixed. ### **Unicode width tables updated** * Terminal: Character (wc) width tables are updated, emoji width table is added. ### **Build System** * Refined **build configuration descriptors** for cleaner and more consistent builds across environments. ### **Packaging and Dependencies** * Added **installation instructions** for the **headless version** via **Arch Linux AUR**. * Reduced dependency footprint by simplifying **WebGui** and **SDLGui** requirements. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi Oblivion, I've recently stumbled across a list of terminals scored by unicode support and speed and noticed that Bobcat was also included. The post also links detailed results and stats, in case you want to have a look what else you could implement... TL;DR: Bobcat made a nice 10th place. And it seems like this release could push it even higher, since it adds support for more DEC modes Best regards, Honza
Hello Honza, Quote: I've recently stumbled across a list of terminals scored by unicode support and speed and noticed that Bobcat was also included. The post also links detailed results and stats, in case you want to have a look what else you could implement... TL;DR: Bobcat made a nice 10th place. And it seems like this release could push it even higher, since it adds support for more DEC modes Smile I have opened a pull request to update the data, thanks! I'm almost sure that Bobcat would be in the top five if we had grapheme cluster and emoji ZWJ (zero width joiners) support. Best regards, Oblivion
Hi, As we move toward Bobcat 0.9.9, I am introducing several UI enhancements, including full locale (translation) support. Starting with v0.9.9, Bobcat now supports internationalization. At the moment, English and Turkish translations are available. If you'd like to contribute translations for other languages, I'd be glad to include them. Just take the Bobcat.t file, add your translations, and either send it to me or submit a pull request. I'll integrate it into the main repository as soon as possible. Best regards, Oblivion