kaijicode/xterm.js

Xterm.js is a terminal front-end component written in JavaScript that works in the browser.

It enables applications to provide fully featured terminals to their users and create great development experiences.

Features

Text-based application support: Use xterm.js to work with applications like bash, git etc.
Curses-based application support: Use xterm.js to work with applications like vim, tmux etc.
Mouse events support: Xterm.js captures mouse events like click and scroll and passes them to the terminal's back-end controlling process
CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) character support: Xterm.js renders CJK characters seamlessly
IME support: Insert international (including CJK) characters using IME input with your keyboard
Self-contained library: Xterm.js works on its own. It does not require any external libraries like jQuery or React to work
Modular, event-based API: Lets you build addons and themes with ease

What xterm.js is not

Xterm.js is not a terminal application that you can download and use on your computer
Xterm.js is not bash. Xterm.js can be connected to processes like bash and let you interact with them (provide input, receive output)

Getting Started

First you need to install the module, we ship exclusively through npm so you need that installed and then add xterm.js as a dependency by running:

npm install xterm

To start using xterm.js on your browser, add the xterm.js and xterm.css to the head of your html page. Then create a <div id="terminal"></div> onto which xterm can attach itself.

<!doctype html>
  <html>
    <head>
      <link rel="stylesheet" href="node_modules/xterm/dist/xterm.css" />
      <script src="node_modules/xterm/dist/xterm.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <div id="terminal"></div>
      <script>
        var term = new Terminal();
        term.open(document.getElementById('terminal'));
        term.write('Hello from \x1B[1;3;31mxterm.js\x1B[0m $ ')
      </script>
    </body>
  </html>

Finally instantiate the Terminal object and then call the open function with the DOM object of the div.

Importing

The proposed way to load xterm.js is via the ES6 module syntax.

import { Terminal } from 'xterm';

API

The full API for xterm.js is contained within the TypeScript declaration file, use the branch/tag picker in GitHub (w) to navigate to the correct version of the API.

Note that some APIs are marked experimental, these are added so we can experiment with new ideas without committing to support it like a normal semver API. Note that these APIs can change radically between versions so be sure to read release notes if you plan on using experimental APIs.

Addons

Addons are JavaScript modules that extend the Terminal prototype with new methods and attributes to provide additional functionality. There are a handful available in the main repository in the src/addons directory and you can even write your own, by using xterm.js' public API.

To use an addon, just import the JavaScript module and pass it to Terminal's applyAddon method:

import { Terminal } from xterm;
import * as fit from 'xterm/lib/addons/fit/fit';


Terminal.applyAddon(fit);

var xterm = new Terminal();  // Instantiate the terminal
xterm.fit();                 // Use the `fit` method, provided by the `fit` addon

You will also need to include the addon's CSS file if it has one in the folder.

Importing Addons in TypeScript

There are currently no typings for addons if they are accessed via extending Terminal prototype, so you will need to upcast if using TypeScript, eg. (<any>xterm).fit().

Alternatively, you can import addon function and enhance the terminal on demand. This would have better typing support and is friendly to treeshaking. E.g.:

import { Terminal } from 'xterm';
import { fit } from 'xterm/lib/addons/fit/fit';
const xterm = new Terminal();

// Fit the terminal when necessary:
fit(xterm);

Third party addons

There are also the following third party addons available:

xterm-webfont

Browser Support

Since xterm.js is typically implemented as a developer tool, only modern browsers are supported officially. Here is a list of the versions we aim to support:

Chrome latest
Edge latest
Firefox latest
Safari latest
IE11

Xterm.js works seamlessly in Electron apps and may even work on earlier versions of the browsers but these are the browsers we strive to keep working.

API

The current full API documentation is available in the TypeScript declaration file on the repository, switch the tag (press w when viewing the file) to point at the specific version tag you're using.

Real-world uses

Xterm.js is used in several world-class applications to provide great terminal experiences.

SourceLair: In-browser IDE that provides its users with fully-featured Linux terminals based on xterm.js
Microsoft Visual Studio Code: Modern, versatile and powerful open source code editor that provides an integrated terminal based on xterm.js
ttyd: A command-line tool for sharing terminal over the web, with fully-featured terminal emulation based on xterm.js
Katacoda: Katacoda is an Interactive Learning Platform for software developers, covering the latest Cloud Native technologies.
Eclipse Che: Developer workspace server, cloud IDE, and Eclipse next-generation IDE.
Codenvy: Cloud workspaces for development teams.
CoderPad: Online interviewing platform for programmers. Run code in many programming languages, with results displayed by xterm.js.
WebSSH2: A web based SSH2 client using xterm.js, socket.io, and ssh2.
Spyder Terminal: A full fledged system terminal embedded on Spyder IDE.
Cloud Commander: Orthodox web file manager with console and editor.
Codevolve: Online platform for interactive coding and web development courses. Live container-backed terminal uses xterm.js.
RStudio: RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R.
Terminal for Atom: A simple terminal for the Atom text editor.
Eclipse Orion: A modern, open source software development environment that runs in the cloud. Code, deploy and run in the cloud.
Gravitational Teleport: Gravitational Teleport is a modern SSH server for remotely accessing clusters of Linux servers via SSH or HTTPS.
Hexlet: Practical programming courses (JavaScript, PHP, Unix, databases, functional programming). A steady path from the first line of code to the first job.
Selenoid UI: Simple UI for the scallable golang implementation of Selenium Hub named Selenoid. We use XTerm for streaming logs over websockets from docker containers.
Portainer: Simple management UI for Docker.
SSHy: HTML5 Based SSHv2 Web Client with E2E encryption utilising xterm.js, SJCL & websockets.
JupyterLab: An extensible computational environment for Jupyter, supporting interactive data science and scientific computing across all programming languages.
Theia: Theia is a cloud & desktop IDE framework implemented in TypeScript.
Opshell Ops Helper tool to make life easier working with AWS instances across multiple organizations.
Proxmox VE: Proxmox VE is a complete open-source platform for enterprise virtualization. It uses xterm.js for container terminals and the host shell.
Script Runner: Run scripts (or a shell) in Atom.
Whack Whack Terminal: Terminal emulator for Visual Studio 2017.
VTerm: Extensible terminal emulator based on Electron and React.
electerm: electerm is a terminal/ssh/sftp client(mac, win, linux) based on electron/node-pty/xterm.
Kubebox: Terminal console for Kubernetes clusters.
Azure Cloud Shell: Azure Cloud Shell is a Microsoft-managed admin machine built on Azure, for Azure.
atom-xterm: Atom plugin for providing terminals inside your Atom workspace.
rtty: A reverse proxy WebTTY. It is composed of the client and the server.
Pisth: An SFTP and SSH client for iOS
abstruse: Abstruse CI is a continuous integration platform based on Node.JS and Docker.
Azure Data Studio: A data management tool that enables working with SQL Server, Azure SQL DB and SQL DW from Windows, macOS and Linux.
FreeMAN: A free, cross-platform file manager for power users
Fluent Terminal: A terminal emulator based on UWP and web technologies.
Hyper: A terminal built on web technologies
Diag: A better way to troubleshoot problems faster. Capture, share and reapply troubleshooting knowledge so you can focus on solving problems that matter.
GoTTY: A simple command line tool that shares your terminal as a web application based on xterm.js.
genact: A nonsense activity generator.
cPanel & WHM: The hosting platform of choice.
Nutanix: Nutanix Enterprise Cloud uses xterm in the webssh functionality within Nutanix Calm, and is also looking to move our old noserial (termjs) functionality to xterm.js
SSH Web Client: SSH Web Client with PHP.
Shellvault: The cloud-based SSH terminal you can access from anywhere.
Juno: A flexible Julia IDE, based on Atom.

And much more...

Do you use xterm.js in your application as well? Please open a Pull Request to include it here. We would love to have it in our list. Note: Please add any new contributions to the end of the list only.

Releases

Xterm.js follows a monthly release cycle roughly.

The existing releases are available at this GitHub repo's Releases, while the roadmap is available as Milestones.

Contributing

You can read the guide on the wiki to learn how to contribute and setup xterm.js for development.

License Agreement

If you contribute code to this project, you are implicitly allowing your code to be distributed under the MIT license. You are also implicitly verifying that all code is your original work.

Copyright (c) 2017-2018, The xterm.js authors (MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2014-2017, SourceLair, Private Company (www.sourcelair.com) (MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2012-2013, Christopher Jeffrey (MIT License)

kaijicode / xterm.js