Terminal Guide

Alternate Screen Buffer (ALTBUF)

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urxvt
xterm
vte
konsole

Switch to alternate screen buffer.

This basic mode is used by the more recent modes alternate screen buffer, with clear on exit, alternate screen buffer, with cursor save and clear on enter as building block.

Terminals supporting this mode offer an alternate screen buffer in addition to the primary buffer. The primary buffer usually supports scroll-back. The alternate buffer is for full screen applications. It does not support scroll-back (or displays scroll-back from the primary screen). Switching to the alternate screen buffer for fullscreen applications allows visually switching back to the contents of the primary buffer after the application terminates.

Both buffers are partially independent. They have a separate:

urxvt ( ✓ )

🛆 Screens have an independent version of the current mapping of GL. (Does this matter with the limited implementation of iso2022?) 🛆 Independent for each screen: cursor position, cursor origin, wraparound mode, insert mode and the pending wrap state. 🛆 force enables cursor on both screens. 🛆 Scrollback buffer is shared between primary and secondary screen. Scrolling in alternative screen buffer still adds to scrollback buffer.

xterm ( ✔ )

🛈 The 'titeInhibit' resource allows disabling of support for this mode. This setting itself is switchable from the application via mode allow alternate screen buffer. 🛈 scrollback buffer is still reachable in the alternative screen buffer, but is not modified when scrolling out lines.

vte ( ✔ )

🛈 send cursor keys on mouse wheel on alternative screen is active by default. 🛈 TODO document effect on osc todo 8

konsole ( ✓ )

🛈 send cursor keys on mouse wheel on alternative screen is active by default. 🛆 invokes select graphic rendition with parameter 0 after switching to alternate screen. 🛆 In konsole the cursor position, SGR state and tab stops of the screen buffers are independent.