Hyperlinks in Terminal Emulators
a day ago
- #VTE
- #hyperlinks
- #terminal-emulators
- Terminal emulators now support hyperlinks for arbitrary text, similar to webpages.
- GNOME Terminal and iTerm2 introduced this feature in spring 2017, with VTE-based terminals expected to follow.
- A command example is provided to create hyperlinks in terminals using escape sequences.
- Potential use cases include linking bug IDs in apt-changelog, commit IDs in git log, and file paths in ls or find outputs.
- Hyperlinks are defined using OSC 8 escape sequences, with specific syntax for opening and closing links.
- Terminal emulators handle hyperlinks as state attributes, similar to text colors or styles.
- Security considerations are addressed, noting that the feature doesn't introduce new vulnerabilities beyond those existing on the web.
- Terminal emulators may impose limits on URI and ID lengths for performance and security reasons.