Terminator, the popular free open-source terminal emulator, release new 2.1.5 version yesterday.
Terminator terminal emulator is written in Python and uses GTK-3 for its user interface. It’s promoted as Multiple GNOME terminals in one window!
It supports splitting terminal into multiple, either horizontally or vertically, by using keyboard shortcut or context menu options. Then, user can drag’n’drop re-arrange them and use shortcut keys to navigate between them.
The terminal emulator also supports groups, as the short video shows you, it’s useful for controlling multiple terminals synchronously.
And, it supports plugins for more features, such as logging, custom command menu, open current dir in file manager, take screenshot, and more.
What’s New in Terminator 2.1.5
In the new 2.1.5 release, it introduced new Remote Plugin, which is most useful for heavy ssh or container users.
It added 3 new options in the context menu for terminal with ssh connected or docker/podman etc container:
- Clone Horizontally,
- Clone Vertically,
- and Clone On Split.
The first 2 options will split the terminal session horizontally or vertically, then clone (re-run ssh or container command, then navigate working directory) it status.
While Clone On Split is a toggle option that enables the previous actions when using “Split Horizontally / Vertically” context menu options.
The plugin is inspired by terminator_plugins which is no longer maintained, and only needs vte.feed_child. And, when cloning a remote session, you can apply a terminator profile based on host or container name. See HERE for more.
Another new feature in the release is the keyboard binding for reverse search. In the search bar (Ctrl+Shift+F), user can previously use Enter shortcut to circle between search result. Now, without highlight “Prev” button, user may use Shift+Enter to go in reverse.
Other changes are mostly bug-fixes and small improvements. They include:
- Fix that search is always initialized as case-sensitive.
- Fix translation in popup menu.
- Shift+Enter will search forward if invert search enabled.
- Fix the Save button behavior for Layouts.
- Translation updates.
How to Get Terminator 2.1.5
Terminator is available in most Linux Distributions’ system repositories. While Arch (Testing), Gentoo, and Homebrew already have the new 2.1.5 package, most others contain old versions.
For Ubuntu, keep an eye on the official PPA, though it’s NOT updated at the moment of writing. Or, you may try it out in 24.04 using my testing PPA package.
If you can’t wait, download the source tarball and build by yourself (see the official installation guide).
