If you have used terminal emulators like guake or tilda the concept of altyo shouldn’t be new – it is a terminal emulator always running in the background with a hotkey binding. This is convenient because you always have a handy terminal with the context of your last working state. altyo is written in vala, depends only on libvte and gtk3. It is a very rich application with a strong focus on visual and usability aspects. Though evilvte is my favourite terminal emulator it is not very flexible with configuration at runtime. altyo comes with several configurable features:

Autostart with desktop session.

Autostart programs, for example, start mocp and mutt in new tabs by default.

Open unlimited tabs, even with long terminal title. If tabs do not fit in the row, they move to a new line.

Drag and drop tabs. Tabs does not stand out from the terminal. Lock tabs. Hotkey for tabs.

<Ctrl-Right> to open links in the default browser.

to open links in the default browser. Program will warn if you try to close the terminal with an important program (ssh,wget pattern is customizable), even if program is running in the background.

Delayed “Close tab”: you have 10 seconds before tab is actually closed, so if you change your mind, press <Ctrl-Shift-r> to restore tab. You may restore tab from terminal popup menu as well.

to restore tab. You may restore tab from terminal popup menu as well. All options can be configured via graphical settings dialog.

Multi monitor support.

> Setup default monitor.

> Individual window size and position for each monitor.

> Program has mode “Follow the mouse”, in this mode, after hiding, window will shown on same monitor with mouse pointer.

> Setup default monitor. > Individual window size and position for each monitor. > Program has mode “Follow the mouse”, in this mode, after hiding, window will shown on same monitor with mouse pointer. Tiling window manager support (usual window). Use --standalone cmdline option to run in tiling window manager.

cmdline option to run in tiling window manager. Multiple instances. You may run several instances of altyo simultaneously.

To install altyo on Ubuntu:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linvinus/altyo $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install altyo

Though the memory usage seemed high on first run, it has reduced with time (even immediately after desktop login) and is slightly higher than that of evilvte now.

Webpage: altyo