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Terminal Settings

Customize your terminal appearance, fonts, colors, and behavior to match your preferences and workflow.

Accessing Terminal Settings​

Settings → Terminal
or
Keyboard: Cmd+Shift+T

Font Settings​

Font Family​

Choose your terminal font:

Font Family:
[Monaco                    ▼]

Popular choices:
- Monaco (default)
- Menlo
- Consolas
- Courier New
- Fira Code (with ligatures)
- JetBrains Mono
- Source Code Pro

Requirements:

  • Monospace font only
  • Must be installed on system
  • Supports Unicode

Font Size​

Font Size: [14] pt

Range: 8-32 pt

Recommendations:
- Small screens: 12-14 pt
- Large screens: 14-16 pt
- Presentations: 18-24 pt

Quick adjust:

Cmd/Ctrl + Plus  → Increase
Cmd/Ctrl + Minus → Decrease
Cmd/Ctrl + 0     → Reset to default

Line Height​

Line Height: [1.2]

Range: 1.0-2.0

Recommendations:
- Compact: 1.0-1.1
- Normal: 1.2 (default)
- Spacious: 1.4-1.5
- Readable: 1.5-1.8

Color Schemes​

Built-in Themes​

Color Scheme:
[Solarized Dark           ▼]

Popular themes:
● Solarized Dark
○ Solarized Light
○ Monokai
○ Dracula
○ One Dark
○ Nord
○ Gruvbox Dark
○ Tomorrow Night

Theme Preview​

┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ Preview                        │
├────────────────────────────────┤
│ $ ls -la                       │
│ drwxr-xr-x  user  group  .     │
│ -rw-r--r--  user  group  file  │
│ $ echo "Hello World"           │
│ Hello World                    │
└────────────────────────────────┘

Custom Colors​

Advanced color customization:

Background:  [#282c34]
Foreground:  [#abb2bf]
Cursor:      [#528bff]

ANSI Colors:
Black:       [#282c34]
Red:         [#e06c75]
Green:       [#98c379]
Yellow:      [#e5c07b]
Blue:        [#61afef]
Magenta:     [#c678dd]
Cyan:        [#56b6c2]
White:       [#abb2bf]

Bright variants: [Configure...]

Cursor Settings​

Cursor Style​

Cursor Style:
● Block
○ Underline
○ Bar (I-beam)

Cursor Blink:
[✓] Enable cursor blinking

Blink Rate:
[500] ms

Cursor Color​

Cursor Color:
● Use theme default
○ Custom color: [#528bff]

Cursor Opacity:
[100]%

Bell & Audio​

Terminal Bell​

Terminal Bell:
[✓] Enable bell sound

Bell Sound:
● System default
○ Custom sound: [Choose File...]
○ Visual bell only (no sound)

Visual Bell:
[✓] Flash screen on bell

Flash Color:
[#ffffff] Opacity: [30]%
Duration: [100] ms

Scrollback​

Buffer Settings​

Scrollback Lines:
[10000] lines

Range: 100-100,000

Recommendations:
- Light use: 1,000-5,000
- Normal use: 10,000 (default)
- Heavy use: 50,000-100,000

⚠️ More lines = more memory

Scrolling Behavior​

Scrolling:
[✓] Smooth scrolling
[ ] Snap to cursor on input
[✓] Mouse wheel scrolling

Scroll Speed:
● Normal
○ Fast
○ Slow

Copy & Paste​

Clipboard Settings​

Copy/Paste:
[✓] Copy on selection
[ ] Paste on right-click
[✓] Trim whitespace on paste

Copy Format:
● Plain text
○ Include formatting
○ Include colors (rich text)

Keyboard Shortcuts​

Copy:  Cmd/Ctrl + C (when text selected)
Paste: Cmd/Ctrl + V
Select All: Cmd/Ctrl + A

Shell Integration​

Default Shell​

Default Shell:
● System default (/bin/zsh)
○ Bash (/bin/bash)
○ Zsh (/bin/zsh)
○ Fish (/usr/local/bin/fish)
○ Custom: [path to shell]

Login Shell:
[✓] Use login shell (source profile)

Environment Variables​

Environment:
[✓] Load system environment
[✓] Load user environment

Custom Variables:
Name       Value
[EDITOR] = [vim  ]    [+]
[LANG  ] = [en_US.UTF-8] [+]

[Add Variable]

Advanced Terminal​

Performance​

Performance:
[✓] Hardware acceleration (GPU)
[ ] Reduce motion
[✓] Fast scrolling

Rendering:
● Canvas (recommended)
○ DOM (slower, compatible)
○ WebGL (fastest, experimental)

Character Encoding​

Encoding:
● UTF-8 (recommended)
○ ASCII
○ ISO-8859-1
○ Custom: [select...]

Terminal Type​

TERM Variable:
[xterm-256color     ▼]

Options:
- xterm
- xterm-256color (default)
- xterm-color
- screen
- screen-256color

Keyboard Shortcuts​

Terminal Shortcuts​

New Terminal:       Cmd+T
Close Terminal:     Cmd+W
Clear Screen:       Cmd+K
Split Horizontal:   Cmd+D
Split Vertical:     Cmd+Shift+D
Next Pane:          Cmd+]
Previous Pane:      Cmd+[
Find in Terminal:   Cmd+F

Customize Shortcuts​

Settings → Terminal → Keyboard

Action              Shortcut
Copy                [Cmd+C        ] [✎]
Paste               [Cmd+V        ] [✎]
Clear               [Cmd+K        ] [✎]
Select All          [Cmd+A        ] [✎]

[Reset to Defaults]

Split Panes​

Pane Settings​

Split Panes:
[✓] Enable pane splitting

Default Split:
● Horizontal
○ Vertical

Pane Border:
[✓] Show border
Color: [#444444]
Width: [1] px

Pane Behavior​

Pane Management:
[✓] Close pane on exit
[✓] Auto-balance panes
[ ] Synchronize input (type in all panes)

Pane Switching:
● Click to focus
○ Hover to focus

Presets​

Save Current Settings​

Presets → Save Current

Preset Name:
[My Custom Terminal   ]

Save:
[✓] Font settings
[✓] Color scheme
[✓] Cursor style
[✓] Keyboard shortcuts

[Save Preset]

Load Preset​

Presets:
○ Default
○ Solarized (Custom)
● My Custom Terminal
○ Presentation Mode

[Load] [Delete] [Export]

Import/Export​

Export Terminal Settings​

Terminal Settings → Export

Export as:
● JSON
○ INI
○ TOML

File: terminal-settings.json
{
  "font_family": "Monaco",
  "font_size": 14,
  "theme": "Solarized Dark",
  "cursor_blink": true
}

Import Settings​

Terminal Settings → Import

[Choose File...] terminal-settings.json

Preview changes:
Font: Menlo → Monaco
Theme: Dark → Solarized Dark

[Import]

Tips & Best Practices​

1. Choose Right Font​

Programming fonts:
✓ Monospace
✓ Clear distinction (0 vs O, 1 vs l)
✓ Ligature support (optional)

Try: Fira Code, JetBrains Mono

2. Comfortable Size​

Test readability:
1. Set font size
2. Read for 5 minutes
3. Eyes comfortable?
4. Adjust if needed

Don't go too small!

3. Dark vs Light​

Dark themes:
+ Better for long hours
+ Less eye strain
- May seem dim

Light themes:
+ Better in bright rooms
+ Higher contrast
- Eye strain in dark

Use system auto-switch!

4. Scrollback Balance​

Too little (1,000):
- Lose history quickly
- Can't review errors

Too much (100,000):
- High memory usage
- Slower performance

Sweet spot: 10,000-20,000

5. Test Before Committing​

After changes:
1. Use for 1 hour
2. Comfortable?
3. Readable?
4. Good contrast?
5. Then save preset

Troubleshooting​

Font Not Showing​

Issue: Selected font not applied

Fix:

1. Check font installed:
   Font Book (Mac) or Font Settings

2. Restart Xermius

3. Try different font

4. Reset to default (Monaco)

Colors Look Wrong​

Issue: Theme colors incorrect

Check:

1. Terminal type: xterm-256color?
2. True color support?
3. Try different theme
4. Reset to default theme

Scrolling Laggy​

Issue: Slow scroll performance

Fix:

1. Reduce scrollback buffer
2. Enable hardware acceleration
3. Disable smooth scrolling
4. Update graphics drivers

Keyboard Shortcuts Not Working​

Issue: Shortcuts don't respond

Check:

1. Not conflicting with system?
2. Not conflicting with other apps?
3. Reset to defaults
4. Remap to different keys

Next Steps​