Linux @lemmy.world kadup @lemmy.world 5d ago

I just discovered drop down terminals and I love them

I’ve been using Linux in an academic setting for years, but only recently migrated fully to using it as my only operating system at home.

I use the terminal quite often, not as much as some users, but often enough that having to open Konsole all the time and manage it’s windows was a minor small annoyance.

But a floating terminal is such a simple solution and it’s so fun. Pictured here is Yakuake. Press F12 the little window shows up ready to use, no matter where I am, press F12 and it collapses again. I can leave a package compiling, updates running, I can use it with htop or whatever I need. F12, BOOP, terminal.

It’s like a fidget toy.

I’m sure this will not amuse most users, but it’s really fun.

23 comments

youve opened my eyes to a brand new way of using the terminal. how does it work on a multi monitor setup? does it always default to opening on primary monitor, or will it pay attention to where hour cursor is or something? can you open 2 or 3 at a time when you have the extra monitors for it? (I will be answering all these questions for myself in a few hours lol just not at my PC rn)
- I'm glad to share this! I too didn't know about these floating terminals.
  
  I don't have two monitors to test, but the terminal appears on whatever virtual desktop I'm using, I assume whichever monitor is currently in focus will spawn the terminal... let me know when you test it.
  
  You can enable tabs at the settings and it will let you have many terminals at the same time, you press the tabs and they change inside that window.
I basically always have a terminal open, but I use tmux instead of multiple tabs/windows. Drop down terminals never really interested me, because I do a lot of my actual work in the terminal, so a maximized window is way more convenient. Glad it’s working for you, though! I love that Linux has so many different workflows available, everyone can find something that works well for them, no matter how they work. :)
- Drop down terminals never really interested me, because I do a lot of my actual work in the terminal
  
  I use tmux
  
  Heh, okay?
  
  If someone has a MacBook assigned for work, iTerm (with shortcut option), has an incredible tmux integration that really brings it all together.
  
  I think it’s a bit much to assume people are not doing significant work or work cannot be done in a terminal just because it might have keyboard shortcut assigned to it. Perhaps take the last line from your comment to heart.
  
  I think they were just saying its more convenient for them to use a maximized terminal, this drop down example is very small in terms of screen real estate
I use tilde (~) but that's because I played Quake back in the day

Sometimes Ctrl-Tilde
Yakuake for life baby, it's the best, fully customizable, some really beautiful presets out there. My sweet spot is full screen but with 70ish percent opacity so I can read what's behind it. Pull up your tutorial or walkthrough or whatever in a browser, hit f12 and goooooo.
Xmonad user here. I have something like this in my config.
For issuing just a command (often pkill, reboot/poweroff, simple start commands) I usually use Super+r. Otherwise, as I use a tiling WM, switching to an empty workspace takes a tenth of a second and the worst, or I just don't care where the terminal spawns because it will find a good place anyway.
- Or just open one in a floating scratch.
Dropdown terminals always remind me of bringing up the console in video games—especially Quake 3 engine games.
- One of them is actually called Guake in honour of that.
  
  I thought that was also the case for the one OP is talking about, ya kuake
On Mint, you can press Ctrl+Alt+T for a terminal window, I use it all the time.
- Yakuake isn't part of the LM (Ubuntu) repository, but is available via Software Manager. (Reminds me of my long ago KDE install where I used 'Quake'.) For some reason the launch took a lot of cycles, but it works ok.
  
  (ArchWiki info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Yakuake#Usage)
- Pretty sure it's a Debian family key-binding, so Ubuntu and LMDE also have it. And yeah, I use it all the time.
  
  I love(d) the drop-down console in Quake-like games but have always preferred my command windows to be floating boxes for whatever reason.
I have mine bound to Meta+Space in prime hotkey real estate.
Yakuake is so great i love it lol. So convenient for little things
I scripted something similar for my bspwm setup. They are useful
Yep. It's amazingly handy. I used to use Guake back when that was a thing. Now I use iterm2 on a MacBook
I used yakuake for years, its excellent out of the box. Recently switched to wezterm together with tdrop, for the same effect.
Gnome has this, Meta + F2

23 comments