footclient - Man Page

• Start a new terminal window, wait until the window is closed and return its exit code: footclient
• Start a new terminal window and exit immediately: footclient [-N|--no-wait]
• Execute a command in a new terminal window: footclient command
• Start a terminal in fullscreen mode: footclient [-F|--fullscreen]
• Start a terminal with the specified window dimensions, in pixels: footclient [-w|--window-size-pixels] widthxheight
• Start a terminal with the specified Wayland app id (default: footclient): footclient [-a|--app-id] id
• Override a configuration option: footclient [-o|--override] section.key=value

tldr.sh

footclient [Options]
footclient [Options] <command> [COMMAND Options]

All trailing (non-option) arguments are treated as a command, and its arguments, to execute (instead of the default shell).​

footclient is used together with foot(1) in --server mode.​

Running it without arguments will open a new terminal window (hosted in the foot server), with your default shell.​ The exit code will be that of the terminal.​ I.​e footclient does not exit until the terminal has terminated.​

-t,--term=TERM

Value to set the environment variable TERM to (see Terminfo and Environment).​ Default: foot.​

-T,--title=TITLE

Initial window title.​ Default: foot.​

-a,--app-id=ID

Value to set the app-id property on the Wayland window to.​ Default: foot (normal mode), or footclient (server mode).​

--class=ID

Alias for --app-id.​

toplevel-tag=TAG

Value to set the toplevel-tag property on the Wayland window to.​ The compositor can use this value for session management, window rules etc.​ Default: not set

-w,--window-size-pixels=WIDTHxHEIGHT

Set initial window width and height, in pixels.​ Default: 700x500.​

-W,--window-size-chars=WIDTHxHEIGHT

Set initial window width and height, in characters.​ Default: not set.​

-m,--maximized

Start in maximized mode.​ If both --maximized and --fullscreen are specified, the last one takes precedence.​

-F,--fullscreen

Start in fullscreen mode.​ If both --maximized and --fullscreen are specified, the last one takes precedence.​

-L,--login-shell

Start a login shell, by prepending a '​-'​ to argv[0].​

-D,--working-directory=DIR

Initial working directory for the client application.​ Default: CWD of footclient.​

-s,--server-socket=PATH

Connect to PATH instead of $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/foot-$WAYLAND_DISPLAY.​sock.​

-H,--hold

Remain open after child process exits.​

-N,--no-wait

Detach the client process from the running terminal, exiting immediately.​

-o,--override=[SECTION.​]KEY=VALUE

Override an option set in the configuration file.​ If SECTION is not given, defaults to main.​

-E,--client-environment

The child process in the new terminal instance will use footclient'​s environment, instead of the server'​s.​

Environment variables listed in the Variables set in the child process section will be overwritten by the foot server.​ For example, the new terminal will use TERM from the configuration, not footclient'​s environment.​

-d,--log-level={info,warning,error,none}

Log level, used both for log output on stderr as well as syslog.​ Default: warning.​

-l,--log-colorize=[{never,always,auto}]

Enables or disables colorization of log output on stderr.​

-v,--version

Show the version number and quit

-e

Ignored; for compatibility with xterm -e.​ See foot(1) for more details.​

Footclient will exit with code 220 if there is a failure in footclient itself (for example, the server socket does not exist).​

If -N,--no-wait is used, footclient exits with code 0 as soon as the foot server has been instructed to open a new window.​

If not, footclient may also exit with code 230.​ This indicates a failure in the foot server.​

In all other cases the exit code is that of the client application (i.​e.​ the shell).​

Client applications use the terminfo identifier specified by the environment variable TERM (set by foot) to determine terminal capabilities.​

Foot has two terminfo definitions: foot and foot-direct, with foot being the default.​

The difference between the two is in the number of colors they describe; foot describes 256 colors and foot-direct 16.​7 million colors (24-bit truecolor).​

Note that using the foot terminfo does not limit the number of usable colors to 256; applications can still use 24-bit RGB colors.​ In fact, most applications work best with foot (including 24-bit colors)).​ Using *-direct terminfo entries has been known to crash some ncurses applications even.​

There are however applications that need a *-direct terminfo entry for 24-bit support.​ Emacs is one such example.​

While using either foot or foot-direct is strongly recommended, it is possible to use e.​g.​ xterm-256color as well.​ This can be useful when remoting to a system where foot'​s terminfo entries cannot easily be installed.​

Note that terminfo entries can be installed in the user'​s home directory.​ I.​e.​ if you do not have root access, or if there is no distro package for foot'​s terminfo entries, you can install foot'​s terminfo entries manually, by copying foot and foot-direct to ~/.​terminfo/f/.​

The following signals have special meaning in footclient:

• SIGUSR1: switch to the dark color theme ([colors-dark]).​
• SIGUSR2: switch to the light color theme ([colors-light]).​

When sending SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 to a footclient instance, the theme is changed in that instance only.​ This is different from when you send SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 to the server process, where all instances change the theme.​

Note: for obvious reasons, this is not supported when footclient is started with --no-wait.​

foot(1)

foot(1), foot.ini(5).