Terminator – A Terminal Emulator to Manage Multiple Terminal Windows on Linux

Terminator is a Linux terminal emulator, which is released under General Public License and is available for GNU/Linux operating systems. The application program lets you use multiple splitted and resized terminals, all at once on a single screen similar to the tmux terminal multiplexer.

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[ You might also like: How to Use Tmux to Access Multiple Terminals in One Window ]

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How it is Different

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Having multiple Gnome Terminal in one window in a very flexible manner is a plus for Linux nerds.

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Who Should Use It

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Terminator is aimed at those who normally arrange lots of terminals near each other, but don’t want to use a frame-based window manager.

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What are its Features

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• Automatically logs all the terminal sessions.

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• Drag and Drop feature for text and URLs.

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• Horizontal scrolling is supported.

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• Find, a function to search for any specific text within the terminal.

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• Support for UTFxad8.

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• Intelligent Quit – It knows about the running process if any.

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• Vertical scrolling is convenient.

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• Freedom of use, General Public License.

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• Support for Tab-based Browsing.

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• Portal xad written in Python.

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• Platform – Support for GNU/Linux Platform.

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Installation of Terminator Emulator on Linux

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On most of the standard Linux Distributions, the terminator version is available in the repository and can be installed using package manager as shown.

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$ sudo apt-get install terminator      [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]rn$ sudo yum install terminator          [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky Linux/AlmaLinux]rn$ sudo emerge -a x11-terms/terminator  [On Gentoo Linux]rn$ sudo pacman -S terminator            [On Arch Linux]rn$ sudo zypper install terminator       [On OpenSUSE]    rn

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How to use Terminator

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Run the “terminator” command in the terminal to use it. Once, you fire the command you will see a screen similar to below.

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Terminal Emulator Keyboard Shortcuts

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To get the most out of Terminator it is crucial to know the key bindings to control. The default shortcut keys that I use most are shown below.

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• Split Linux Terminal Horizontally – Ctrl+Shift+O

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• Split Linux Terminal Vertically – Ctrl+Shift+E

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• Move Parent Dragbar Right – Ctrl+Shift+Right_Arrow_key

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• Move Parent Dragbar Left – Ctrl+Shift+Left_Arrow_key

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• Move Parent Dragbar Up – Ctrl+Shift+Up_Arrow_key

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• Move Parent Dragbar Down – Ctrl+Shift+Down_Arrow_key

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• Hide/Show Scrollbar – Ctrl+Shift+s

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Note: Check the hidden scrollbar above, it can again be made visible using the same above key combination.

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• Search for a Keyword – Ctrl+Shift+f

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• Move to Next Terminal – Ctrl+Shift+N or Ctrl+Tab

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Terminator Keyboard Shortcuts

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There are several terminator keyboard shortcuts available:

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• Move to the Above Terminal – Alt+Up_Arrow_Key

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• Move to the Below Terminal – Alt+Down_Arrow_Key

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• Move to the Left Terminal – Alt+Left_Arrow_Key

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• Move to the Right Terminal – Alt+Right_Arrow_Key

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• Copy a text to clipboard – Ctrl+Shift+c

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• Paste a text from Clipboard – Ctrl+Shift+v

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• Close the Current Terminal – Ctrl+Shift+w

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• Quit the Terminator – Ctrl+Shift+q

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• Toggle Between Terminals – Ctrl+Shift+x

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• Open New Tab – Ctrl+Shift+t

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• Move to Next Tab – Ctrl+page_Down

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• Move to Previous Tab – Ctrl+Page_up

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• Increase Font size – Ctrl+(+)

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• Decrease Font Size – Ctrl+(xad)

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• Reset Font Size to Original – Ctrl+0

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• Toggle Full-Screen Mode – F11

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• Reset Terminal – Ctrl+Shift+R

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• Reset Terminal and Clear Window – Ctrl+Shift+G

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• Remove all the terminal grouping – Super+Shift+t

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• Group all Terminal into one – Super+g

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Note: Super is a key with the windows logo right of left CTRL.

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That’s all for now. Don’t forget to provide us with your valuable feedback in the comment section.

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