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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Complex Scripts/Complex Text Layout support in Terminal Emulators (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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My day job involves a fair bit of coding and I do most of the stuff in the terminal. But there is one sore spot that still bugs me to this day. All terminal emulators I've used don't have complex text layout support.

CTL is something required by Arabic and Brahmic scripts. I'm from Myanmar and Myanmar script is one of the Brahmic family of scripts. I've seen Indians also having this problem with their Devanagari script as well. I mean I don't need it too often but when I do, I have to open up a GUI text editor to edit.

I just want to know if there's something inherently fundamental in terminal emulators that makes it hard to support CTL? Is there even a terminal emulator with CTL support?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Leave ‘em behind.

What should be and why it is, two diff questions…

A terminal renders a single glyph in a grid. That’s it. This stems from the days from before - when there was no graphics instruction to render anything different, and link speeds could be, on bad days, slower than typing speeds.

Terminal rendering evolved to include ANSI instruction to manipulate the rendering-color, grid position, etc.

However, at its core, is this limitation…a glyph in a grid…and this limitation is due to how slow terminals are.

Terminals originally operated at a serial baud rate where one could nearly type faster than the transmission speed.

X windows…was designed…to not have these limits.

Terminal emulation is handy, but … it is limited. By definition retro. If a terminal doesn’t work…move on…and make something that does :)