# Contour - a modern & actually fast Terminal Emulator
[](https://github.com/contour-terminal/contour/actions/workflows/build.yml)
[](https://codecov.io/gh/contour-terminal/contour)
[](https://isocpp.org/)
[](https://discord.gg/ncv4pG9)
[](https://twitch.tv/christianparpart)
`contour` is a modern and actually fast, modal, virtual terminal emulator,
for everyday use. It is aiming for power users with a modern feature mindset.
## Features
- ✅ Available on all major platforms, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Windows.
- ✅ GPU-accelerated rendering.
- ✅ Font ligatures support (such as in Fira Code).
- ✅ Unicode: Emoji support (-: 🌈 💝 😛 👪 - including ZWJ, VS15, VS16 emoji :-)
- ✅ Unicode: Grapheme cluster support
- ✅ Terminal tabs
- ✅ [Persistent sessions](https://contour-terminal.org/persistent-sessions/) that survive the window (daemon mode) — reattach locally or over the network, and interoperate with tmux in both directions
- ✅ Bold and italic fonts
- ✅ High-DPI support.
- ✅ Vertical Line Markers (quickly jump to markers in your history!)
- ✅ Vi-like input modes for improved selection and copy'n'paste experience and Vi-like `scrolloff` feature.
- ✅ Blurred behind transparent background support for Windows 10 and above as well as the KDE and GNOME desktop environment on Linux.
- ✅ Blurrable Background image support.
- ✅ Runtime configuration reload
- ✅ 256-color and Truecolor support
- ✅ Key binding customization
- ✅ Color Schemes
- ✅ Profiles (grouped customization of: color scheme, login shell, and related behaviors)
- ✅ [Synchronized rendering](https://contour-terminal.org/vt-extensions/synchronized-output/) (via `SM ? 2026` / `RM ? 2026`)
- ✅ Text reflow (configurable via `SM ? 2028` / `RM ? 2028`)
- ✅ Clickable hyperlinks via [OSC 8](https://gist.github.com/egmontkob/eb114294efbcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda)
- ✅ Clipboard setting via OSC 52
- ✅ Sixel inline images
- ✅ ReGIS vector graphics (VT330/VT340)
- ✅ Terminal page [buffer capture VT extension](https://contour-terminal.org/vt-extensions/buffer-capture/) to quickly extract contents.
- ✅ Builtin [Fira Code inspired progress bar](https://github.com/contour-terminal/contour/issues/521) support.
- ✅ Read-only mode, protecting against accidental user-input to the running application, such as Ctrl+C.
- ✅ VT320 Host-programmable and Indicator status line support.
- ✅ and much more ...
## Installation
`contour` is packaged and available for installation on multiple distributions:
- `Fedora` use official [package](https://packages.fedoraproject.org/pkgs/contour-terminal/contour-terminal/)
- `Arch` use official [package](https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/contour/)
- `Void` use official [package](https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/tree/master/srcpkgs/contour)
- `openSUSE` use official [package](https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/X11:terminals/contour-terminal)
Additional packages can be found on the release [page](https://github.com/contour-terminal/contour/releases) including:
- ubuntu package
- AppImage
- static build
- MacOS bundle
- Windows installer and zipped app
### Installing via Flatpak
#### Install from Flathub
Click the following button to install Contour from the Flathub store.
[](https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.contourterminal.Contour)
#### Prerequisites
- Make sure you have flatpak installed in your system ([here is a tutorial on how to install it](https://flatpak.org/getting.html)), and make sure that the version is >= 0.10 (check it using this command: `flatpak --version`)
- Add the [flathub](https://flathub.org) repository using the following command: `flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo`.
- Proceed with one of the following options:
- [Install from Flathub](#install-from-flathub)
- [Install from GitHub release](https://github.com/contour-terminal/contour/releases)
## Requirements
- **operating system**: A *recent* operating system (macOS, Windows 10+, an up-to-date Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD)
- **GPU**: driver must support at least OpenGL 3.3 hardware accelerated or as software rasterizer.
- **CPU**: x86-64 AMD or Intel with AES-NI instruction set or ARMv8 with crypto extensions.
## Configuration
In order to configure Contour, it is necessary to modify the configuration file
`contour.yml`, which is initially generated in the `$HOME/.config/contour`
directory. Some features also require shell integration. These can be generated
via the CLI (see below), these currently exist for zsh, fish and tcsh.
## Persistent sessions (daemon mode)
> **Experimental.** Daemon mode is new in 0.7.0 and still settling. It is built into every Contour
> and covered by the test suite, but its command-line flags and its wire protocol may change
> between releases.
Contour already gives you tabs and split panes inside one window. Daemon mode goes further: it
moves your sessions into a background process, so they survive the window that shows them. A long
build keeps going after you close the window, work done over SSH survives the link dropping, and
the same sessions can be reattached from another machine over an encrypted connection.
```sh
contour client # attaches to the daemon, starting one if none is running
```
Contour also speaks tmux's control-mode protocol in both directions: tmux-aware tooling — and the
stock `tmux` binary itself — can attach to a Contour daemon, and `contour client --tmux` mirrors a
running tmux server into a Contour window, windows as tabs and panes as splits.
See [Persistent sessions](https://contour-terminal.org/persistent-sessions/) for the full guide.
## Installing from source
Contour is best installed from supported package managers, but you can build
from source by following the instructions below.
### UNIX-like systems (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, macOS)
#### Prerequisites
```sh
./scripts/install-deps.sh
```
This script *might* ask you for the administrator password if a package dependency
can be installed via the system package manager.
#### Compile
You can use cmake presets to compile contour. The full list of available presets can be seen using `cmake --list-presets`. To compile release build for linux `clang-release` or `gcc-release`, or `appleclang-release` on macOS accordingly.
```sh
cmake --preset clang-release
cmake --build --preset clang-release
# Optionally, if you want to install from source
cmake --build --preset clang-release --target install
```
#### Windows 10 or newer
#### Prerequisites
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](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-command-line-introducing-the-windows-pseudo-console-conpty/).
### Using External ConPTY Support on Windows 10
On Windows 10, the built-in ConPTY implementation has limitations with mouse input handling, particularly when using WSL2 with terminal applications like tmux. This is a known issue that affects several terminal emulators.
Contour supports using an external `conpty.dll` implementation which resolves these issues on Windows 10.
To enable external ConPTY:
1. Get `conpty.dll` and `OpenConsole.exe` files from wezterm:
Go to https://github.com/wez/wezterm/tree/main/assets/windows/conhost and download `conpty.dll` and `OpenConsole.exe`
2. Put these files into your Contour bin directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Contour Terminal Emulator 0.6\bin\)
3. Start Contour. It will automatically detect and use the external ConPTY implementation.
1. Set up [vcpkg](https://vcpkg.io/en/getting-started.html), preferably somewhere high up in the folder hierarchy, and add the folder to your `PATH`.
```
cd C:\
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
.\vcpkg\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
```
2. Install Visual Studio Build Tools (make sure to select the CLI tools for
C++, which you might need to do in the separate components tab).
3. Install Qt6 (i.e. to C:\Qt)
4. Open the _developer_ version of Powershell.
5. In the `contour` source folder execute `.\scripts\install-deps.ps1`. This step may take a _very_ long time.
#### Compile
In the _developer_ version of Powershell:
```psh
# change paths accordingly if you installed QT and vcpkg to somewhere else
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\Qt\6.5.0\msvc2019_64\lib\cmake
cmake --build build/
# Optionally, if you want to install from source
cmake --build build/ --target install
```
#### Distribution Packages
[](https://repology.org/project/contour-terminal/versions)
## CLI - Command Line Interface
```txt
Usage:
contour [terminal] [config FILE] [profile NAME] [debug TAGS] [live-config] [dump-state-at-exit PATH]
[early-exit-threshold UINT] [working-directory DIRECTORY] [class WM_CLASS]
[platform PLATFORM[:OPTIONS]] [session SESSION_ID] [PROGRAM ARGS...]
contour font-locator [config FILE] [profile NAME] [debug TAGS]
contour info vt
contour help
contour version
contour license
contour parser-table
contour list-debug-tags
contour daemon [socket PATH] [label NAME] [exit-with-last-session] [tmux-compat-socket LABEL]
[listen-tcp HOST:PORT] [token TOKEN] [token-file FILE]
[tls-cert FILE] [tls-key FILE] [log TAGS] [log-file FILE]
contour client [socket PATH] [label NAME] [tmux] [tmux-socket PATH] [profile NAME] [config FILE]
[connect-tcp HOST:PORT] [token TOKEN] [token-file FILE] [tls-ca FILE]
[log TAGS] [log-file FILE]
contour generate terminfo to FILE
contour generate config to FILE
contour generate integration shell SHELL to FILE
contour capture [logical] [words] [timeout SECONDS] [lines COUNT] to FILE
contour set profile [to NAME]
```
# References
* [VT510](https://vt100.net/docs/vt510-rm/): VT510 Manual, see Chapter 5.
* [ECMA-35](http://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-35):
Character Code Structure and Extension Techniques
* [ECMA-43](http://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-43):
8-bit Coded Character Set Structure and Rules
* [ECMA-48](http://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-48):
Control Functions for Coded Character Sets
* [ISO/IEC 8613-6](https://www.iso.org/standard/22943.html):
Character content architectures
* [xterm](https://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html): xterm control sequences
* [console\_codes](http://man.he.net/man4/console_codes) Linux console codes
* [Summary of ANSI standards for ASCII terminals](http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/ansicode.txt)
* [Text Terminal HOWTO (Chapter 7.2, PTY)](http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Text-Terminal-HOWTO-7.html#ss7.2)
* [ANSI escape code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code) in Wikipedia
### 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.
```