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▲ wpm 6 hours ago

I'd love to, I switched back to iTerm after not really feeling any big difference in my uses cases, but also hating the crappy plain text with no defaults listed config that required me to use a goddamn web app to comfortably learn and fill out.

There was also some pretty noticeable differences in character rendering between the two with identical-as-I-could-make-them font settings.

▲paaloeye 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> here was also some pretty noticeable differences in character rendering between the two with identical-as-I-could-make-them font settings. I'm pretty sure it was iTerm's problem.

I've tested a number of Terminal Emulators on macOS and Ghostty's rendering is always superior.

You should give 1.4 a try.

▲paaloeye 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It just works. — Steve Jobs

Ref: https://arne.me/blog/we-need-more-zero-config-tools

▲wpm 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah except when it doesn't. I shouldn't need to reference documentation to change my terminal font.

▲paaloeye 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Honestly, iTerm's settings were always a mess in my opinion.

I feel like good tools should be invisible and Ghostty's lack of fully fledged Settings app is a feature, not a bug.

Just open it in Kakoune/NeoVim and change with a speed of thoughts. Never used any third-party Settings apps though.

Ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48858121

▲wpm 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Change with a speed of thought

Yeah, except the default config file doesn't EXIST and there is nothing but the reference docs to tell you what the hell you're supposed to put in there. What am I supposed to do, guess? Is it `font=` or `font-family` or `font-name`? That's fucking terrible. The very existence of a website like this: https://ghostty.zerebos.com proves the failure in my opinion.

Good tools should be invisible. Good tools behave the way I want them to. That's different than the way you want them to behave. Or appear. Good defaults are good. That is absolutely no excuse to abandon good UX for configurability.

I'm happy the defaults work for you. They don't for me.

And don't get me wrong, ghostty is a fine terminal and I don't begrudge it, and I think libghostty is awesome, it's just not the application for me.

▲OnlineTux an hour ago | parent [-]

What do you mean “there is nothing but the reference docs to tell you what” valid configuration options are? Where would you expect that to be documented otherwise?

▲wpm 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

I would expect the default configuration (which does set keys to specific default values) to appear in my ghostty config file. If there isn't a UI, how the fuck am I supposed to know what the names of all of the keys are? How am I supposed to know what is even possible to change?

A brand new ghostty config is an empty file because it only shows you what the overrides to the default config are, which means if you want to change your ANSI colors, off to the docs to look up what they're called as config keys and what format it expects as a value. Want to hide the Secure Keyboard Entry overlay? Off to the docs to figure out what the key is called. Is it a boolean? Does it accept true/false, or only 0/1? Who knows! Go to some website and scroll and scroll and scroll and maybe you can find it.

Or they can just put 'macos-secure-input-indication="true"' in a file it creates when it launches for the first time and notices it doesn't have a config file in an expected location. It can put that in there and every other default setting it actually is setting for itself, instead of just keeping it all socked away in the compiled executable as a behavior. Show me, on the computer I have, in the file I'm supposed to edit anyways, what all of the possible keys are, and some general indication or hint of what the fuck I can put in there. Don't make me fetch it for every single goddamn boolean. I wouldn't need to open a fucking web browser to hide the secure input icon because I'm not stupid and could infer it from the default config. Oh I bet it's the 'macos-secure-input-indication' key I need to set, lets flip that to false. There's a limit to this of course, not everything is going to be immediately clear, and for keybinds it might be a little preposterous to have all of the defaults listed, but for setting my themes? Colors? Fonts? Basic shit? Don't make me work, I have better things to do, but I need to be able to read my terminal.

The lie of "zero config" tools is that they are absolutely NOT zero config. They are usually full of changable behavior and they just skip the part where they make it easy for you to figure out how to change any of it, because...I dunno...configuring your software to work the way you want is...bad? Sounds stupid to me.