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terminator - Man Page

multiple GNOME terminals in one window

Examples (TL;DR)

Start terminator window: terminator
Start with a fullscreen window: terminator -f
Split terminals horizontally: <Ctrl> + <Shift> + O
Split terminals vertically: <Ctrl> + <Shift> + E
Open new tab: <Ctrl> + <Shift> + T

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.

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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.

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.

Referenced By

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

2023-04-01 Manual for Terminator