Differences between xterm and pterm mac os x#
Differences between xterm and pterm iso#

Differences between xterm and pterm mac os x#

I use the vi editor you can tell it the character encoding through the $LC_CTYPE environment variable.Â The only problem is that although Mac OS X comes with several character encodings (in /usr/share/locale), it doesn't come with one for Windows Latin-1 (aka CP1252).Â So I've created my own (with the mklocale(1) command.Â I've even submitted the result to Apple in the hope that they might include it with future versions.

Differences between xterm and pterm iso#

Â Most of my text files use the Windows Latin-1 encoding (the same as the default ISO Latin-1, but with curly quotes and other useful control characters in an otherwise-unused range).Â No problem for the Terminal: you can set the character encoding in Window Settings->Display.

I hit this one a LOT.Â It's a real annoyance. If the terminal app crashes you lose ALL of your terminals! So, is there a secret terminal port from NeXTSTEP lurking in the pocket of some intrepid young hacker, who is, as I write this, poised to lead us to salvation?'

Finally, you've got xterm :) But, it means you need to run X11 (either XDarwin or Apple's X11) and it doesn't integrate as nicely into the OS X workflow.'.

However, font choices are limited, it works only on supported video cards, and it has a very annoying 'fuzzy text bug' if you set your terminal to the wrong size. It manages to sidestep the CPU usage/UI responsiveness issue by rendering the entire terminal using OpenGL (yes, the characters are actually textures on GL primatives).

The closed source GLTerm ($10) is probably the best of the three 'native' options, from a certain perspective.

It also neglects to support xterm mouse reporting.

now imagine a full-screen vim session at 1600x1200. The open source iTerm is slightly better, but, it's awfully slow (it grabs as much as 30% of the CPU per terminal instance.Sure, transparency is nice, and with some hacking about (when was the last time you had to force 'stty erase'?) you can get decent enough color xterm emulation, but. Apple's Terminal is slow (though performance has been better in 10.2.x), doesn't support xterm mousing, and for some reason refuses to send PgUp/PgDn through to any applications running in the terminal (gah!).

'Take, for instance, the following options: What's your answer to the state of terminal emulation on the Mac?' Drawoc summarizes the currently available offerings and their drawbacks, below. Unfortunately for me, decent terminal emulation seems to be one area where Mac OS X is quite lacking. However, due to the sort of development work I do, I spend a great deal of my time in a terminal. Drawoc Suomynona asks: 'After settling into Mac OS X over the last four months, I'm generally impressed.