Implementation of Hyperlink Support in Terminal Emulators
By
nvahalik
The kind of bagel that ruins lesser bagels for you.
Summary
The article discusses the implementation of hyperlink support in terminal emulators, specifically focusing on how GNOME Terminal and iTerm2 introduced this feature in 2017. It explains that while terminal emulators could previously auto-detect URLs onscreen, they couldn't support arbitrary text linking to URLs like webpages do. The article details the technical implementation through the VTE widget that powers GNOME Terminal, and covers the broader ecosystem impact including other terminal emulators that have adopted similar functionality.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledMost of the terminal emulators auto-detect when a URL appears onscreen and allow to conveniently open them (e.g. via Ctrl+click or Cmd+click, or the right click menu).
It was, however, not possible until now for arbitrary text to point to URLs, just as on webpages.
In spring 2017, GNOME Terminal and iTerm2 have changed this.
GNOME Terminal is based on the VTE widget, and almost all of this work went to VTE.
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