[dbz]

Is there somewhere we can view the feature roadmap for this? Will iTerm2 support ligatures at some point in the future? I'm also interested in future performance enhancements, and a comparison to terminal.

[gnachman]

There is no official feature roadmap, but here's the current plan:

3.2.x will be focused on rendering improvements. The full change log is here: https://iterm2.com/appcasts/testing_changes3.txt

3.3, which is currently under development, is adding a Python scripting API (https://iterm2.com/python-api/) and fixing tab and window titles to make sense, plus adding a status bar.

Feature requests that are candidates for 3.4 are here: https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/milestones/8

If you have something in mind file an issue. Y'all are my PMs.

There is already support for ligatures (prefs>profiles>text>enable ligatures). The Metal renderer does not support them because that's an extra level of complexity I can't handle in the first release. It would require constructing CTLineRefs which is already the slowest part of drawing. Subpixel antialiasing also makes this really difficult, but since that's going away in Mojave I'll revisit it.

Future performance enhancements that I have in mind are: - Faster tokenization (including revisiting SIMD) - Mojave-specific optimizations (removing subpixel AA and its knock-on consequences) - Move per-frame setup work into a compute shader. This is tricky because some people have CPUs that are relatively faster than their GPUs (thanks Intel!) - Reuse the preceding frame's rendered texture when updating less than a full frame - Move work off the main thread where possible

[cseelus]

Thanks for the infos and of course all your hard word, iTerm2 is an awesome piece of software.

Looking forward to Mojave dropping support for subpixel-antialiasing and maybe iTerm supporting Ligatures with the new drawing engine someday.

[memco]

Yeah, I’m wondering about this too. I like transparent windows and font ligatures so as much excitement as I have about this, I won’t be able to use it unless these limitations can be eliminated. I’ll keep using iTerm regardless, but it would be nice to see the benefits become available for my setup as I do notice the performance issues.

[coldtea]

I'd just disable them. Speed and lighterweight (on CPU) rendering are more important that ligatures and transparency, which are both gimmicky features.

[bostonvaulter2]

I disagree that ligatures are gimmicky in a general sense, but they definitely don't seem necessary for a terminal window. And doubly so if they impact performance.

[bitwize]

This is a Mac program. One of the reasons why the Mac has historically been far ahead of other platforms is because its display could leverage centuries of advances in typography, and not be confined to the a 1970s character cell display designed by illiterates. Ligatures are extremely important for the platform and for the audience.

[Klathmon]

And it sounds like they wouldn't, and that their priorities are different than yours.

[empath75]

It supports them now. I use fira code.

[mynameisvlad]

Per the article, the Metal 2 renderer doesn't support ligatures, transparency, and a few other nice-to-haves.