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Add to SafariWhen comparing Terminology vs Xfce4 terminal, the Slant community recommends Xfce4 terminal for most people. In the question“What are the best terminal emulators for UNIX-like systems?” Xfce4 terminal is ranked 4th while Terminology is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Xfce4 terminal is:
Like other applications included in the Xfce package, this terminal emulator is very lightweight and doesn't require many resources to run. This makes it perfect for systems that have low specs.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Scalable fonts
Font size in Terminology automatically scales according to window size. When you resize the window, so does the text.
Pro Looks smashing
Terminals are often very dull looks wise, not so with terminology.
Pro In-terminal video, picture and thumbnail support
Thumbnails, pictures, and videos can all be rendered in-terminal, based on the directory listing or mouse interactions. For instance, using "ls" on a picture folder will produce a list of thumbnails instead of only the filenames.
Pro Splitable
You can split windows, like in terminator.
Pro Visually customizable
It is very customizable in every aspect of the visual options.
Pro Integrates well with Enlightenment WM
Terminology is part of the Enlightenment WM packages. As such, it integrates really well with Enlightenment and other tools in the package.
Pro Block copy
You can copy text in blocks.
Pro Copyfree licensing
Terminology uses the Simplified BSD License. As it is a copyfree license, it tends to minimize license incompatibilities, legal compliance requirements, and various other complexities that may make it difficult to understand certain licenses.
Pro Good for systems with low specs
Like other applications included in the Xfce package, this terminal emulator is very lightweight and doesn't require many resources to run. This makes it perfect for systems that have low specs.
Pro True transparency
You can set the transparency of the Xfce4 terminal on any amount you want, out of the box.
Pro Tabs support
Xfce4 fully supports tabs and tab-based navigation.
Pro Almost everything is customizable
You can configure size, color, background, etc.
Pro Composition effects
Xfce4 terminal takes advantage of xfce composition effects.
Pro Fast rendering
Pro Can be switched to a drop-down terminal
You can configure the Xfce-terminal to act as a dropdown terminal if you want, which makes for greater ease of use.
Cons
Con Configuration is sometimes complicated and non-obvious
There's a "Settings" menu for configuration, but more options there would make it easier. Downloading themes and extensions from the official repo would be a big plus.
Con No True-Color support
Not able to display a modern full range of colors, yet.
Con Scrollback is completely nroken
Scrolling back the emulator inserts random lines from other places in the scrollback buffer in between the actuall output lines. Thus it is impossible to see a correct copy of the previous output.
Con No scrollbar
The lack of scrollbar in Terminology makes navigation difficult. But you can use keys for it.
Con Too many bells and whistles
Some people feel that Terminology has too many features that are not suited for a terminal, but for a window manager instead. For instance, viewing thumbnails, watching videos and gifs, and other similarly flashy things just feel like eye candy and should not be part of a terminal emulator.
Con Cannot set text color for character under cursor to background color
Suppose you have a dark background with a light cursor and light foreground color: the light cursor will cover up whatever character it is on, so that you cannot read it. There is no option to set the foreground color for the character under the cursor to what is normally the background color. Such an option would allow you to read the character under the cursor.
Con Execution in xfce4-terminal - e mode is not always functional
Con Resizing text resizes window
Con No profiles
There's no profiles or profile-based customization in Xfce-terminal.
Con Can't scroll on spamming text
When text generates too fast, you can't scroll it, so you just can't read anything in such moments.
Con Does not support sixel images
