# v0.6.0

URL: https://tuios.dev/releases/v0-6-0

> Experimental Kitty graphics support, prefix-free window cycling in terminal mode, and a real terminal cursor with vi-mode shapes.

24 commits between v0.5.0 and v0.6.0, counting the v0.5.1 patch. Seven are
about one feature, kitty graphics: a program in a window can now show images
through the host terminal. It ships as experimental. The rest:

- Window cycling in terminal mode without the prefix key.
- A real terminal cursor, so vi-mode cursor shapes work.
- Compatibility fixes, several of them contributed.

## Images, experimentally

tuios redraws each window's content into its own grid, so an image cannot pass
through as is: its graphics commands carry positions that mean nothing to the
host terminal. tuios now translates them.

- The VT emulator reads the graphics commands, tuios tracks each placement
  against its window, and forwards it to the host at the right cell.
- A placement is moved when its window moves, resizes or scrolls, and hidden
  when it is covered, dragged, or scrolled out of view.
- Shared memory, file and direct transmission all work, with chunking for
  large images.
- Cell pixel sizes are reported to the PTY, so programs size images correctly.

`yazi` and `kitty icat` show real images in tuios windows on a host terminal
that supports them: Kitty, WezTerm, Ghostty, iTerm2, Foot or Contour.

Five fixes followed the feature in this cycle: clipping at window borders,
placements drifting against scrollback, image ID collisions between windows,
images left behind when a program leaves the alternate screen, and virtual
placements that assumed a placeholder grid tuios did not have. More edges were
found later.

### Known limits

- `TUIOS_KITTY_GRAPHICS=0` turns graphics off.
- Images wider than the viewport are hidden rather than clipped.
- Sixel is parsed but disabled until raster clipping exists.

## Graphics detection by asking

tuios used to guess graphics support from the terminal's name. Now it asks.

- A DA1 query detects sixel, and the kitty graphics query detects the kitty
  protocol.
- Reads poll with a timeout, so a terminal that never answers cannot hang
  startup.
- `TUIOS_DEBUG_CAPS=1` logs what detection found. `TUIOS_KITTY_GRAPHICS` and
  `TUIOS_SIXEL_GRAPHICS` override it either way.

## Cycling without the prefix

Window management used to be three keys away in terminal mode. Now it is one:

- macOS: `Opt+Tab` and `Opt+Shift+Tab` cycle windows.
- Linux and Windows: `Alt+N` and `Alt+P`, because `Alt+Tab` belongs to the OS
  window switcher.
- `Opt+Esc` or `Alt+Esc` leaves terminal mode.

The bindings live in a new `[keybindings.terminal_mode]` section and show in
the help menu. This part of the release was contributed.

## A real cursor

tuios used to paint its own cursor, a cyan block drawn into the grid. It now
moves and styles the real terminal cursor, so cursor shape sequences from
programs pass through. A shell in vi mode shows a block in normal mode and a
bar in insert mode, blinking included.

## Fixed

- Paste works in daemon mode. Pasted text was written into the internal pipe
  whose responses are discarded, so it vanished.
- Arrow keys work in cmus and other ncurses programs. Programs that turn on
  application cursor keys mode now get SS3 sequences instead of CSI.
- Fast scrollback no longer crashes in colour comparison. Claude Code's output
  was fast enough to trigger it. Contributed.
- tuios builds on FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
- macOS terminal handling is split from Linux, because the shared ioctl
  constants were Linux-only.
- `--hide-clock` and `--window-title-position` survive opening new windows
  instead of being overwritten by the config loader. These two shipped as
  v0.5.1.
- Animation bookkeeping is skipped when nothing is animating.

Graphics stayed experimental well past this release, with horizontal clipping
and sixel still open. `TUIOS_KITTY_GRAPHICS=0` restores the old behaviour.