Tested Terminals

[o-sdn-o]

Requirements

• Unicode/UTF-8
• 24-bit True Color
• xterm-style Mouse Reporting

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Terminals

• Termux
• tmux
  • Release of the second mouse button is not reported when two mouse buttons are pressed simultaneously
• Ultimate++ Terminal widget
• Gnome Terminal
• Linux VGA console
  • 16-color mode (8 background, 16 foreground)
  • PS/2 protocol (and ImPS/2 Microsoft Intellimouse PS/2 Extension) compliant mouse support only
  • Mouse support requires RW access to the /dev/input/mice meta device.
    Several ways to do it:
    • Grant permanent access to /dev/input/mice_vtm for specific user_name by cloning a device node /dev/input/mice, Linux console and gpm #125 (comment)
    • Insecure ways:
      • Grant permanent access to the linux input subsystem for the specific user_name (relogin required; at the same time open RW access to the keyboard device)

      sudo usermod -a -G input user_name

      • Grant access to /dev/input/mice for all until reboot (make it world-accessible):

      sudo chmod 666 /dev/input/mice

      • Grant permanent access to /dev/input/mice for all by setting udev rules (make it world-accessible):

      sudo echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="input", KERNEL=="mice", MODE="666"' > /etc/udev/rules.d/85-vtm-mouse-access.rules
      sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && udevadm trigger

• st, stterm
• mintty
• Windows Terminal
• Windows Command Prompt
  • Minimum: Windows 8/Server 2012, Implement Windows Console API server #237
  • Recommended: Windows 10 or later
• kitty
• xterm
• Alacritty
• xfce4-terminal
• Konsole
• wezterm
• iTerm2
  • It is necessary to assign shortcuts Ctrl + PgDn/PgUp and unbind the Right button single click
    Screenshots...

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• Apple Terminal, Terminal.app
  • Release of the second mouse button is not reported when two mouse buttons are pressed simultaneously
  • 256-color mode (16 ANSI + 6×6×6 cube + 24 grayscale)
  • It is necessary to assign shortcuts Ctrl + PgDn/PgUp
    Screenshots...

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• Tilix
  • Shortcuts Ctrl + PgDn/PgUp are reserved for switching between sessions. Switching between windows doesn't work without reassigning these shortcuts.
• Konsole
  • DECSET 1003 mouse tracking mode is supported since 07/06/2021
• PuTTY
  • DECSET 1002 and 1006 are supported by PuTTY, which is enough to move windows, but not enough to highlight active UI elements
• qterminal
  • Swapped right and middle buttons

[o-sdn-o]

The core problem

Without support for character fragmentation, wide characters cannot be displayed in half (e.g. halves with different background colors)

A possible solution is the use of some kind of escape sequence to display fragments of characters
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/terminal-wg/specifications/-/issues/23

5/13/2024: It is going to be fixed soon.

2x2 characters:

screen_record_Sun_05.12.2024_23-38-45.28.3.mp4

[USLTD]

tmux isn't terminal, is it? 🧐
Also please add Termux to tested terminals. Only problem is dragging on mobile but I don't know about with physical mouse

[USLTD]

I regard Terminal Multiplexer as Pseudo-terminal Manager rather than Emulator. With what you said Terminal Multiplexers look like Emulators but I still think that it's kinda wrong 😓
IDK.

[o-sdn-o]

Terminal emulators and multiplexers have identical internals. Their difference is only in the form in which the output occurs. A terminal emulator can have many panes and tabs and the resulting output is produced in the GUI. A terminal multiplexer has everything the same, but the resulting output produced in the TUI.

[USLTD]

Ok. Also why don't add versions of Terminals you tested? For example my Termux's version is 0.118.0. I think it will be helpful

[o-sdn-o]

I decided not to specify terminal versions because it is unlikely that any terminal will stop supporting truecolor or UTF-8 (minimum requirements) if it currently supports it. If vtm does not work correctly in some of the terminals listed above, then the only solution is to update this terminal to the latest version.

[o-sdn-o]

vtm actually has very modest requirements for terminals, and if it works fine in something, then it will always work fine in it

[megatog615]

Can't seem to get mouse input working on Debian Stable in the Linux Console. I am trying to set this up on an old i686 Pentium III system and have already compiled and confirmed that it runs on the system. It doesn't work on other Debian boxes that I have running, even with chmodding /dev/input/mice to 666. I don't use gpm.

Everything seems to work just fine in the terminal of my choice, though. Would be great to get this working correctly on the PIII system as it would be its primary desktop mode.

[megatog615]

From running Xorg in the past I can confirm that it does use the synaptics driver. Modern Xorg is way too slow to run on this machine so I don't use it anymore.

If Xorg can detect a PS/2 device surely there must be a utility that can detect and list off these devices? If only it was as easy as 'lsusb' or 'lspci'.
EDIT: Oh my, there is(lshw).
Output of lshw suggests it's PNP device 0f13 which is an ALPS touchpad.

[o-sdn-o]

Synaptic has a compatibility mode, maybe AlpsPS/2 ALPS has the same functionality, I google their capabilities.

[o-sdn-o]

I've added mouse support without a scroll wheel. Perhaps this will be enough. I cannot test this for now. Could you check if this option works (dev/sdn branch).

[megatog615]

It works! I'll return post again if I find any issues with it. This pretty much enables VTM on retro 90's (PS/2-compatible) PCs!

[o-sdn-o]

Thank you! This will really work in full force when the size of allocated memory is reduced. So far, memory consumption is not optimized, and it can be reduced by 30 times.