terminator - Man Page

multiple GNOME terminals in one window

Examples (TL;DR)

Synopsis

terminator [options]

Description

This manual page documents Terminator, a terminal emulator application.

Terminator is a program that allows users to set up flexible arrangements of GNOME terminals. It is aimed at those who normally arrange lots of terminals near each other, but don’t want to use a frame based window manager.

Options

This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-'). A summary of options is included below.

-h,  --help

Show summary of options.

-v,  --version

Show the version of the Terminator installation.

-m,  -M,  --maximise,  --maximize

Start with a maximised window.

-f,  --fullscreen

Start with a fullscreen window.

-b,  --borderless

Instruct the window manager not to render borders/decorations on the Terminator window (this works well with --maximise).

-H,  --hidden

Hide the Terminator window by default. Its visibility can be toggled with the hide_window keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+A by default).

-T FORCEDTITLE, --title=FORCEDTITLE

Force the Terminator window to use a specific name rather than updating it dynamically based on the wishes of the child shell.

--geometry=GEOMETRY

Specify the preferred size and position of Terminator’s window; see X(7).

-e COMMAND, --command=COMMAND

Run the specified command instead of the default shell or profile specified command.
Note: if Terminator is launched as x-terminal-emulator -e behaves like -x, and the longform becomes --execute2=COMMAND.

-x COMMAND [ARGS], --execute=COMMAND [ARGS]

Run the rest of the command line instead of the default shell or profile specified command.

--working-directory=DIR

Set the terminal’s working directory.

-g FILE, --config=FILE

Use the specified file for configuration.

-r ROLE, --role=ROLE

Set a custom WM_WINDOW_ROLE property on the window.

-l LAYOUT, --layout=LAYOUT

Start Terminator with a specific layout. The argument here is the name of a saved layout.

-s LAYOUT, --select-layout=LAYOUT

Open the layout launcher window instead of the normal terminal.

-p,  --profile=PROFILE

Use a different profile as the default.

-i,  --icon=FORCEDICON

Set a custom icon for the window (by file or name)

-u,  --no-dbus

Disable DBus.

-d,  --debug

Enable debugging output (please use this when reporting bugs). This can be specified twice to enable a built-in python debugging server.

--debug-classes=DEBUG_CLASSES

If this is specified as a comma separated list, debugging output will only be printed from the specified classes.

--debug-methods=DEBUG_METHODS

If this is specified as a comma separated list, debugging output will only be printed from the specified functions. If this is specified in addition to --debug-classes, only the intersection of the two lists will be displayed.

--new-tab

If this is specified and Terminator is already running, DBus will be used to spawn a new tab in the first Terminator window.

--toggle-visibility

If this is specified and Terminator is already running, DBus will be used to toggle Terminator window visibility. Usable under Wayland to replace hide keyboad shortcut.

Keybindings

The following default keybindings can be used to control Terminator. Most of these keybindings can be changed in the Preferences.

F1

Launches the full HTML manual.

Creation & Destruction

The following items relate to creating and destroying terminals.

Ctrl+Shift+O

Split terminals Horizontally.

Ctrl+Shift+E

Split terminals Vertically.

Ctrl+Shift+T

Open new tab.

Ctrl+Shift+I

Open a new window.
(Note: unlike in previous releases, this window is part of the same Terminator process.)

Super+I

Spawn a new Terminator process.

Alt+L

Open layout launcher.

Ctrl+Shift+W

Close the current terminal.

Ctrl+Shift+Q

Close the current window.

Navigation

The following items relate to moving between and around terminals.

Alt+Up

Move to the terminal above the current one.

Alt+Down

Move to the terminal below the current one.

Alt+Left

Move to the terminal left of the current one.

Alt+Right

Move to the terminal right of the current one.

Ctrl+PageDown

Move to next tab.

Ctrl+PageUp

Move to previous tab.

Ctrl+Shift+N or Ctrl+Tab

Move to the next terminal within the same tab.

Ctrl+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+Tab

Move to the previous terminal within the same tab.

Organisation

The following items relate to arranging and resizing terminals.

Ctrl+Shift+Right

Move parent dragbar right.

Ctrl+Shift+Left

Move parent dragbar left.

Ctrl+Shift+Up

Move parent dragbar up.

Ctrl+Shift+Down

Move parent dragbar down.

Super+R

Rotate terminals clockwise.

Super+Shift+R

Rotate terminals counter-clockwise.

Ctrl+Shift+PageDown

Swap tab position with next tab.

Ctrl+Shift+PageUp

Swap tab position with previous tab.

Drag and Drop

The layout can be modified by moving terminals with Drag and Drop. To start dragging a terminal, click and hold on its titlebar. Alternatively, hold down Ctrl, click and hold the right mouse button. Then, **release Ctrl**. You can now drag the terminal to the point in the layout you would like it to be. The zone where the terminal would be inserted will be highlighted.

Focus

The following items relate to helping to focus on a specific terminal.

F11

Toggle window to fullscreen.

Ctrl+Shift+X

Toggle between showing all terminals and only showing the current one (maximise).

Ctrl+Shift+Z

Toggle between showing all terminals and only showing a scaled version of the current one (zoom).

Ctrl+Shift+Alt+A

Hide the initial window. Note that this is a X11 global binding, and can only be bound once. On Wayland use window manager keyboard shortcuts to call terminator --toggle-visibility.

Grouping & Broadcasting

The following items relate to grouping and broadcasting.

Super+T

Group all terminals in the current tab so that any input sent to one of them goes to all of them.

Super+Shift+T

Remove grouping from all terminals in the current tab.

Super+G

Group all terminals so that any input sent to one of them goes to all of them.

Super+Shift+G

Remove grouping from all terminals.

Alt+A

Broadcast to all terminals.

Alt+G

Broadcast to grouped terminals.

Alt+O

Broadcast off.

Miscellaneous

The following items relate to miscellaneous terminal related functions.

Ctrl+Shift+C

Copy selected text to clipboard.

Ctrl+Shift+V

Paste clipboard text.

Ctrl+Shift+S

Toggle scrollbar.

Ctrl+Shift+F

Search within terminal scrollback.

Ctrl+Shift+R

Reset terminal state.

Ctrl+Shift+G

Reset terminal state and clear window.

Ctrl+Plus (+)

Increase font size.
Note: this may require you to press shift, depending on your keyboard.

Ctrl+Minus (-)

Decrease font size.
Note: this may require you to press shift, depending on your keyboard.

Ctrl+Zero (0)

Restore font size to original setting.

Ctrl+Alt+W

Rename window title.

Ctrl+Alt+A

Rename tab title.

Ctrl+Alt+X

Rename terminal title.

Super+1

Insert terminal number, i.e. 1 to 12.

Super+0

Insert padded terminal number, i.e. 01 to 12.

Authors

Terminator was written by Chris Jones <cmsj@tenshu.net> and others.

This manual page was written by Chris Jones <cmsj@tenshu.net> and others.

See Also

terminator_config(5)

Referenced By

terminator_config(5), xde-menu(1).

2023-04-01 Manual for Terminator