xterm

What is xterm?

xterm is a terminal emulator library that can be used to create terminal interfaces in web applications. It provides a way to embed a terminal in a web page, allowing users to interact with a command-line interface directly from their browser.

What are xterm's main functionalities?

Basic Terminal Initialization

This code initializes a basic terminal instance and attaches it to a DOM element with the ID 'terminal-container'.

const { Terminal } = require('xterm');
const terminal = new Terminal();
terminal.open(document.getElementById('terminal-container'));

Customizing Terminal Appearance

This code demonstrates how to customize the appearance of the terminal, including the number of columns and rows, as well as the theme colors for the background and foreground.

const { Terminal } = require('xterm');
const terminal = new Terminal({
  cols: 80,
  rows: 24,
  theme: {
    background: '#1e1e1e',
    foreground: '#ffffff'
  }
});
terminal.open(document.getElementById('terminal-container'));

Handling Terminal Input

This code sets up an event listener to handle user input in the terminal. The input data is logged to the console.

const { Terminal } = require('xterm');
const terminal = new Terminal();
terminal.open(document.getElementById('terminal-container'));
terminal.onData(data => {
  console.log('User input:', data);
});

Writing Data to Terminal

This code demonstrates how to write data to the terminal. The text 'Hello, World!' is written to the terminal, followed by a carriage return and newline.

const { Terminal } = require('xterm');
const terminal = new Terminal();
terminal.open(document.getElementById('terminal-container'));
terminal.write('Hello, World!\r\n');

Other packages similar to xterm

blessed

Blessed is a curses-like library for creating terminal user interfaces in Node.js. It provides a higher-level abstraction for building complex terminal applications, including support for widgets like buttons, text boxes, and more. Compared to xterm, blessed is more focused on creating full-fledged terminal applications rather than embedding a terminal emulator in a web page.

terminal-kit

Terminal-kit is a comprehensive library for creating terminal applications in Node.js. It offers a wide range of features, including support for colors, styles, input handling, and more. Terminal-kit is similar to blessed in that it is designed for building terminal applications, but it provides more low-level control and flexibility. Unlike xterm, terminal-kit is not focused on web-based terminal emulation.

node-pty

Node-pty is a library that provides bindings to pseudo terminals (PTYs) in Node.js. It allows you to spawn and interact with terminal processes programmatically. While node-pty does not provide a terminal emulator like xterm, it can be used in conjunction with xterm to handle the backend process management for a web-based terminal interface.

README

xterm.js

Xterm.js is a terminal front-end component written in JavaScript that works in the browser.

It enables applications to provide fully featured terminals to their users and create great development experiences.

Features

• Text-based application support: Use xterm.js to work with applications like bash, git etc.
• Curses-based application support: Use xterm.js to work with applications like vim, tmux etc.
• Mouse events support: Xterm.js captures mouse events like click and scroll and passes them to the terminal's back-end controlling process
• CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) character support: Xterm.js renders CJK characters seamlessly
• IME support: Insert international (including CJK) characters using IME input with your keyboard
• Self-contained library: Xterm.js works on its own. It does not require any external libraries like jQuery or React to work
• Modular, event-based API: Lets you build addons and themes with ease

What xterm.js is not

• Xterm.js is not a terminal application that you can download and use on your computer
• Xterm.js is not bash. Xterm.js can be connected to processes like bash and let you interact with them (provide input, receive output)

Real-world uses

Xterm.js is used in several world-class applications to provide great terminal experiences.

• SourceLair: In-browser IDE that provides its users with fully-featured Linux terminals based on xterm.js
• Microsoft Visual Studio Code: Modern, versatile and powerful open source code editor that provides an integrated terminal based on xterm.js

Do you use xterm.js in your application as well? Please open a Pull Request to include it here. We would love to have it in our list.

Browser Support

Since xterm.js is typically implemented as a developer tool, only modern browsers are supported officially. Here is a list of the versions we aim to support:

• Chrome 48+
• Edge 13+
• Firefox 44+
• Internet Explorer 11+
• Opera 35+
• Safari 8+

Xterm.js works seamlessly in Electron apps and may even work on earlier versions of the browsers but these are the browsers we strive to keep working.

Demo

To launch the demo simply run:

npm install
npm start

Then open http://0.0.0.0:3000 in a web browser (use http://127.0.0.1:3000 if running under Windows).

Addons

Addons are JavaScript modules that attach functions to the Terminal prototype to extend its functionality. There are a handful available in the main repository in the addons directory, you can even write your own (though they may break when the internals of xterm.js change across versions).

To use an addon, just include the JavaScript file after xterm.js and before the Terminal object has been instantiated. The function should then be exposed on the Terminal object:

<script src="node_modules/dist/xterm.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/addons/fit/fit.js"></script>

var xterm = new Terminal();
// init code...
xterm.fit();

Releases

Xterm.js follows a monthly release cycle roughly.

The existing releases are available at this GitHub repo's Releases, while the roadmap is available as Milestones.

Development and Contribution

Xterm.js is maintained by SourceLair and a few external contributors, but we would love to receive contributions from everyone!

To contribute either code, documentation or issues to xterm.js please read the Contributing document before.

The development of xterm.js does not require any special tool. All you need is an editor that supports JavaScript and a browser (if you would like to run the demo you will need Node.js to get all features).

It is recommended though to use a development tool that uses xterm.js internally, to develop for xterm.js. Eating our own dogfood has been proved extremely beneficial for this project. Known tools that use xterm.js internally are:

SourceLair

Visit https://lair.io/sourcelair/xterm and follow the instructions. All development will happen in your browser.

Visual Studio Code

Download Visual Studio Code, clone xterm.js and you are all set.

License Agreement

If you contribute code to this project, you are implicitly allowing your code to be distributed under the MIT license. You are also implicitly verifying that all code is your original work.

Copyright (c) 2014-2016, SourceLair, Private Company (www.sourcelair.com) (MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2012-2013, Christopher Jeffrey (MIT License)