TERMITE

Introduction

Termite¹² is a minimal VTE-based terminal emulator. It is a modal application, similar to Vim, with an insert mode and selection mode where keybindings have different functions. Termite is based on the VTE library.

The configuration file allows to change colors and set some options. Termite supports transparency along with both the 256 color and true color (16 million colors) palettes. It has a similar look and feel to urxvt.

Basic Usage

Termite starts in insert mode by default. Text may be selected using the mouse, or by using selection-mode keys. In insert mode, Ctrl+Shift+c is used to copy selected text to the X clipboard,Ctrl+Shift+v to paste.

Configuration

Termite looks for configuration files in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/termite/config, ~/.config/termite/config, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/termite/config and /etc/xdg/termite.cfg. The configuration file is used to change options such as font, colors, window hints, etc. The configuration file is in ini format, with three sections: options, colors, and hints.

To start customizing termite copy the base example file to your home dir first:

 cp /etc/xdg/termite/config ~/.config/termite/config

• Fonts

  Fonts are specified in the format font=<font_name><font_size> under the options section. <font_name> is specified according to fontconfig, not Xft. Use fc-list to see which fonts are available on the system (see also Font configuration#Font paths).

  ~/.config/termite/config
  

  [options]
  font = Monospace 9
  font = xos4 Terminus 12px
  font = Droid Sans Mono 8
  

• Colors

  Colors consist of either a 24-bit hex value (e.g. #4a32b1), or an rgba vector (e.g.rgba(16, 32, 64, 0.5)).
  Valid properties for colors are foreground, foreground_bold, foreground_dim, background, cursor, and colorN(where N is an integer from zero through 254; used to assign a 24-bit color value to terminal colorN).

  ~/.config/termite/config
  

  [colors]
  foreground = #dcdccc
  background  = #3f3f3f
  

• Transparency

  Termite supports true transparency via color definitions that specify an alpha channel value. This requires a compositor to be running, such as Compton or xcompmgr. Most compositors do not require special configuration for Termite to use transparency.

  ~/.config/termite/config
  

  [colors]
  background = rgba(63, 63, 63, 0.8)
  

  • For I3 Transparency

    Note: In i3, in stacked/tabbed layout, this shows all windows "stacked" on top of each other, in the order they were most recently in the foreground, rather than showing the desktop (the root window) directly behind Termite. This is due to i3 reordering windows rather than hiding invisible windows in tiling mode. You can configure your compositor to make windows with _NET_WM_STATE=_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDENfully transparent to solve this. For example, for compton use

    ~/.compton.conf
    

    opacity-rule = [
      "0:_NET_WM_STATE@:32a *= '_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN'"
    ];
    

¹:Archwiki is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later unless otherwise noted.
²:Termite is provided under the MIT License, unless otherwise noted.