Terminal Package for U++

Terminal package is a flexible, easy-to-use yet powerful cross-platform virtual terminal emulation widget and library written in C/C++ for U++.

Terminal package is designed from the ground up with modularity and maintainability in mind, and it is not based on the existing terminal emulation libraries.

Requirements
Installlation
Version
Highlights
Features
Specifications
Examples
Screenshots
Acknowledgements
License

Requirements

U++ (ver. >= 2025.1)
POSIX (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, etc.), Windows, or MacOS
A decent C/C++ compiler that supports at least C++17. (GCC/CLANG/MinGW/MSC)
Snacks & beer.

Installation

There are three ways to install the source code of Ultimate++ terminal widget:

The package is immediately available via UppHub, the 3rd-party source package management system of U++. This is the simplest and recommended method. (Requires U++ ver. > 2022.2, or nighty builds.)
Clone or download this repository and set it up as an U++ assembly or nest. You can find more information on U++ packages, assemblies and nests, here.
U++ terminal widget is also available via the upp-components repo, which is a collection of general-purpose packages for U++.*

Version

Terminal package loosely follows the release cycles of U++. Releases are tagged twice a year. Currently it is tagged as 2025.2.

Highlights

Terminal package completely separates the virtual terminal from the pseudo-terminal process (pty). As a result, Terminal package and TerminalCtrl, are not bound by any platform-specific pty implementation. Instead, they are decoupled, and an optional pty process class, PtyProcess which encapsulates POSIX, Windows 10 and winpty pseudoconsole APIs, is provided with tha package simply as the default option. In this way, using TerminalCtrl on any platform supported by U++, directly as a front-end for some other terminal based services, such as SSH or TELNET, etc., has become possible. For example, U++ terminal package can be compiled, run and used on supported platforms as a pure SSH2 terminal. (See the Examples section.)
Terminal package is designed with simplicity in mind. A fully-fledged terminal emulation requires less than 50 sLoC. In fact, the first basic example provided with the package is only a single .cpp file with 29 sLoC, and it can run complex/heavy applications with mouse tracking and embedded images support, such as GNU Emacs, vim text editor, Lynx, GNUPlot, tmux, Ranger, a vim inspired file manager with inline image preview support, or mapscii, an OpenStreetMap implementation for xterm compatible virtual terminal emulator, or even Jexer, a java-based modern and slick text user interface (TUI) and windowing system for modern terminal emulators, and xterm Window Manager, with ease.
Terminal package combines simplicity with configurability. Although it is easy to use, and requires very little coding, TerminalCtrl, is by no means restrictive. It it highly configurable.
TerminalCtrl is a regular U++ widget. It is derived from Upp::Ctrl, and is following the same basic rule: Everthing belongs somewhere. It supports most of the generic Ctrl methods where applicable or makes sense. Of course, If you are determined enough, you can even do some “interesting” things, such as embedding Terminal instances into TreeCtrl nodes or Arrayctrl rows. ;)
Everything belongs somewhere rule runs through the heart of Terminal package. There are no manual memory allocations/deallocations, no new/delete pairs, and no smart/not-so-smart/shared pointers in the code; only the containers, and extensive application of the RAII principle.
TerminalCtrl supports true color. TerminalCtrl is a true color (24-bit/16M color) virtual terminal emulator. It supports RGB, CMY, CMYK, and indexed (256-color) palettes via SGR extended colors sequences.
TerminalCtrl supports inline images. It has a flexible infrastructure and support for inline images and image manipulation in general. It can handle sixel graphics with 4/16/256 colors, or high/true color. It also supports JPG, PNG, BMP raster image formats, or raw RGB images via iTerm2's inline images protocol, jexer image protocol, a simple and useful wire protocol which allows terminals to display popular true color image formats, and Kitty's graphics protocol. In fact, since TerminalCtrl uses the common raster decoding api of U++, theoretically it can display any raster image that has a registered decoder. Terminal ctrl uses Upp::Display objects to display the embedded images. Client code can set the image display to one of the predefined display objects that'll process or manipulate the images before they are displayed (stretch/scale/colorize/flip/add text, etc., you name it), and the changes will immediately take place. Moreover, developers can create their own cell displays tailored for their specific needs. TerminalCtrl also supports an external image viewing mode, where the image data is handed to client code for rendering and external viewing.
TerminalCtrl can also run inside a web browser such as Firefox and Chromium, or their derivatives. Thanks to U++ team, it is possible to run U++ GUI applications from within a web browser that supports HTML-5 canvas and websockets. And TerminalCtrl is no exception. Applications using TerminalCtrl widget can basically turn into a remote terminal that can be accessed via any decent web browser (even from a smartphone!) if compiled with the TURTLE flag. (See the Examples section).
Terminal package has a BSD 3-Clause license.
TerminalCtrl can run Crysis. Amazing, isn't it?

Features

Supports whatever platform U++ supports. (Linux, Windows, MacOS).
Supports POSIX, Windows (tm) 10, and winpty pseudoconsole APIs via a unified, basic interface, using the PtyProcess class.
Supports VT52/VT1xx/VT2xx, partial VT3XX/4XX/5XX, and xterm emulation modes.
Supports user configurable device conformance levels (1, 2, 3, 4, and 0 as VT52 emulation).
Supports both 7-bit and 8-bit I/O.
Supports Unicode/UTF8.
Supports emojis.
Supports user configurable, legacy “g-set” (G0/G1/G2/G3), and related shifting functions (LS0/LS1/LS1R/LS2/LS2R/LS3/LS3R/SS2/SS3).
Supports ANSI conformance levels.
Supports scalable fonts. (The changes in font size and/or face immediately take place.)
Supports various terminal state, device, and mode reports.
Supports DEC VT52 graphics charset, VT1xx line-drawing charset, VT2xx multinational charset, and VT3xx technical charset.
Supports VT52/VT1xx/VT2xx and PC-style keyboard emulation with function keys (i.e. DECFNK).
Supports both pre-coded accelerator keys and run-time configurable accelerator keys.
Supports UDK (DEC’s user-defined function keys feature).
Supports user configurable blinking text and blink interval.
Supports Display objects.
Supports inline images with true color (sixel, jpeg, png, bmp, tiff, etc).
Supports external handling of images.
Supports ANSI + aixterm colors (16 colors palette).
Supports true color (16 million colors).
Supports extended colors sequences .
Supports RGB, CMY, CMYK and indexed color palettes via extended color sequences.
Supports xterm dynamic colors and color setting (dynamic ink/paper/selection colors).
Supports rgb, rgba, cmy, cmyk, hash6 and older hash3, hash9, hash12 color text specifications.
Supports background color erase (BCE).
Supports transparency, i.e. allows background images, even animations. It's up to client code.
Supports VT4xx rectangular area operations: copy, invert, fill. erase.
Supports VT4xx rectangular area checksum calculation and reporting.
Supports both DEC and ISO style selective erases.
Supports reverse wrap.
Supports SGR overline attribute.
Supports alternate screen buffer.
Supports history/scrollback buffer.
Has a user switchable scrollbar.
Supports cell-level highlighting.
Supports text search.
Supports xterm style alternate scroll.
Supports resize (and optional lazy resize to reduce flicker on network terminals such as SSH-based ones).
Supports both immediate display refresh and delayed (buffered) display refresh.
Supports xterm style mouse tracking: button, wheel, motion, focus in/out events.
Supports a large portion of xterm's window ops (window reports and actions).
Supports user configurable cursor styles (block, beam, underscore, blinking/steady).
Supports cursor locking.
Supports basic clipboard operations on texts, hyperlinks, and images.
Supports application clipboard/selection manipulation protocol (OSC 52)
Supports basic drag and drop operations on texts, hyperlinks and images.
Shows drag and drop animations (i.e thumbnails/samples

Terminal

Install / Use

README