FFmpeg-SIXEL VS st

Also:

https://github.com/saitoha/libsixel

contains img2sixel, which lets you dump images to the terminal. It can also do animated GIFs.

Video:

https://github.com/saitoha/FFmpeg-SIXEL

GUI apps:

https://github.com/saitoha/SDL1.2-SIXEL

and more, linked from the libsixel repository.

> I don’t see why sixels couldn’t work.

Sixels will work: they are fast enough to allow youtube video playback !!!

https://github.com/saitoha/FFmpeg-SIXEL/blob/sixel/README.md

But the problem is NOT THE FORMAT, the problem is the lack of tooling. links and w3m are among the rare text browsers that can display images in the console.

It's just a matter of the browser sending the image to something in some format, but if that hasn't be thought about as a possibility (say, for text reflow issues) it's going to be far more complicated than just adding a new format, as you will have to work both on say the text reflow issues (ex: how do you select the size of the placeholder, when expressed in characters?), and the picture display.

Personally, I do not care much about sixels, kitty or iterm format - all I want is to see some kind of support.

Yes, it would be better if that support was for the option that has the greatest chance of succeeding, but even that is a second concern: in the worst case, we can write transcoders to whatever format people prefer!

But when there is no "input" to transcode, you have a much bigger problem!

> an off the shelf ASCII plotting library probably involves less custom tooling

With a terminal like msys2 or xterm, no custom tooling is required: just use the regular gnuplot after doing the export for the desired resolution, font, and font size.

gnuplot is far more standard than plotting library that often require special Unicode fonts on top of requiring you to use their specific format.

> you need to "edit your makefile". That isn't going to work for distributions

Is it not? [st] requires exactly that. And distros seem to have no issues shipping it.

[st] https://st.suckless.org/

I am fundamentally and ideologically opposed to using a terminal emulator implemented in electron.

If you feel similarly, then you might enjoy https://st.suckless.org/

You can use different forks of the ST. I, for example, use this one, already with the necessary patches https://github.com/mrdotx/st

kiss with kiss-xorg, nsxiv, st, dmenu with script, tewi, fet.sh

My journey of using terminal emulators began together with my introduction to Linux about 7 years ago. GNOME terminal was my first as it came pre-installed on Ubuntu, my first Linux distribution. Since then, I've had the opportunity to explore and utilize a range of terminal emulators, including Alacritty, Kitty, st, Konsole, xterm, and most recently iTerm2. It's been interesting to experiment with these different emulators, each offering its unique features (or similar however with each with personal touch), user interfaces, and performance benchmarks. Just the other day, a new terminal emulator caught my attention: Warp Terminal. My curiosity won, and Warp was downloaded, this short blog are my thoughts about Warp terminal. At the moment there is only support for macOS, however linux and windows builds are on the way.

Terminal : st

For those looking for a minimal VT100 terminal emulator without the legacy baggage of Xterm, I highly recommend checking out Suckless Software’s st: https://st.suckless.org/

That last reference builds off of the work of the other two. It also breaks down how NOT modern Xterm is, but, if I've read it correctly, it confirms that its input latency is low compared to all other tested terminal emulators, including Alacritty and ST, which humorously and justifiably thrashes Xterm on its homepage for being a bloated program. Its not a good choice for everyone: it has poor right-to-left text and Unicode support, making working with Chinese, Arabic, and other alphabets not great, I've read.

ST is a favorite of some fervent minimalists. I do not think you would like it.