The terminal window

SSH connections open in a terminal window. A window holds as many tabs as you like, and each tab runs its own session with its own AI Pilot panel and file browser. This page walks through the parts of the window and explains how the terminal behaves when a connection drops, when you copy and paste, and when you search the output.

Tabs at the top, the AI Pilot panel and the rail on the right, the status bar at the bottom

Open a terminal

• From the start window: click a connection, or select it and press Enter. A new terminal window opens with the connection in its first tab, and the start window closes. See Connections.
• New Tab ⌘T/CtrlT or the + button after the last tab opens the new tab page, where you pick a connection.
• New Window ⌘N/CtrlN opens another terminal window with a new tab page.
• In the command palette, choosing a connection opens it in a new tab.

Home ⌘⇧H/CtrlShiftH, or the house button at the right end of the tab bar, brings the start window to the front. Your terminal windows stay open.

The tab bar

Each tab shows a status dot, a title and a close button:

• The status dot takes the color of the connection, or the tab color you chose, while the session is connected. It pulses amber while kaiport connects, turns red when the connection failed and gray when it ended.
• The title is the connection name or the name you gave the tab. Hover over a tab to see the title the shell or the running program sets, if there is one.
• A sparkle icon appears while the AI Pilot panel is open in this tab or AI Pilot is working there. It pulses while AI Pilot works.
• A number tells you how many panes the tab has when it's split.

To switch tabs, click them or press ⌘⇧]/CtrlTab and ⌘⇧[/CtrlShiftTab. ⌘1/Ctrl1 to ⌘8/Ctrl8 jump to the first eight tabs, ⌘9/Ctrl9 jumps to the last one. On macOS, ⌃Tab and ⌃⇧Tab work as well.

To reorder tabs, drag a tab onto another one. A middle click closes a tab.

The buttons at the right end of the tab bar:

Tab actions

Right-click a tab to open its menu:

The new tab page

A new tab starts with a list of your saved connections.

• Type in the search field to filter by name, host, user name or tag.
• Move with ↑ and ↓ and open the highlighted connection with Enter, or click a connection. It opens in this tab.
• New connection creates a connection and opens it in this tab right away.
• Home brings the start window to the front.

The rail

The narrow bar at the right edge of the window holds the tools of the current tab:

AI Pilot and the file browser share the space next to the terminal: opening one replaces the other, and clicking the highlighted button again hides the panel. Drag the left edge of the panel to change its width, between 300 pixels and 70 % of the window. kaiport remembers the width.

Every tab has its own panel. In a split tab, the panel works with the focused pane.

The status bar

The bar below the terminal describes the focused pane:

• the status dot and the name of the tab
• the working directory, as soon as the shell reports it (see Shell integration)
• the badge Send input to all tabs while broadcast mode is on
• the badge Shell integration once kaiport has detected it in this session

Connection states

While a tab connects, the terminal shows Connecting… and then Authenticating… with the name of the connection. If the server asks for a password, a key passphrase or a one-time code, a dialog asks for it. See SSH connections.

When a connection fails or ends, the terminal shows Connection failed or Disconnected with the reason, for example Session ended, and two buttons:

• Reconnect starts a new session in the same pane. The earlier output stays visible above it.
• Close tab ends the session and closes the pane, or the whole tab if it's the only pane.

File → Reconnect ⌘R/CtrlR reconnects the focused pane at any time, also while it's connected. That helps when a session hangs.

Reconnect automatically

With Settings → Terminal → Reconnect automatically (on by default), kaiport reconnects a session that was connected and then ended. It makes up to three attempts, after 2, 5 and 10 seconds, and counts down in the message, for example Retrying in 5s…. After three failed attempts it stops; click Reconnect to try again. A successful reconnect resets the count.

A connection that never came up, for example because of a wrong password, isn't retried.

Session restore

With Settings → Terminal → Restore session (on by default), kaiport remembers the terminal windows that are open when you quit, and the connection of each tab. On the next start it reopens these windows and connects the tabs again instead of showing the start window.

kaiport restores the windows and one connection per tab; in a split tab, that's the connection of the focused pane. It doesn't restore tab names, colors and pins, additional panes, tabs that show the new tab page, or the terminal output. Windows you closed before quitting stay closed, and connections you deleted in the meantime are skipped.

Notifications for long commands

When a command you typed has run for at least 8 seconds and finishes while you aren't looking at it – another tab is in front, or the window is in the background – kaiport shows a system notification with the tab name, the command and its duration. Click the notification to bring the window to the front.

kaiport notices the end of a command when the shell prompt comes back, with or without shell integration. Turn the notifications off with Settings → Terminal → Notify when commands finish. Your operating system has to allow notifications from kaiport.

Copy and paste

• Copy the selected text with ⌘C/CtrlShiftC.
• Paste with ⌘V/CtrlShiftV.
• On Windows and Linux, CtrlC stays what it is in every terminal: it interrupts the running command.
• With Settings → Terminal → Copy on select (off by default), selected text lands in the clipboard right away.
• A right-click without a selection pastes the clipboard. Settings → Terminal → Right click pastes (on by default) switches this off.

The selection menu

Right-click selected text to open a small menu. On macOS, right-clicking a word selects it first.

• Copy copies the selection.
• Explain selection (AI) opens AI Pilot with a request to explain the selected output.
• Fix this error (AI) opens AI Pilot with a request to find the cause of the selected error and fix it.

The request waits in the AI Pilot input field together with the selected text, so you can add details before you press Enter. See AI Pilot in the terminal.

Search the output

⌘F/CtrlF or the Search button in the rail opens a search field at the top right of the terminal. kaiport jumps to a match while you type and highlights all matches. The search covers the whole scrollback, ignores upper and lower case and looks for plain text.

Clear the terminal

Clear terminal ⌘K/CtrlK removes the output and the scrollback of the focused pane and keeps only the current line. It only clears what kaiport shows: the shell and running programs don't notice.

Zoom

Zooming changes the font size in steps of one point, between 8 and 32. Actual Size returns to 13, the default. The zoom changes the setting Settings → Terminal → Font size, so it applies to all terminal windows and to the editor. See Appearance.

Links, Unicode and colors

• Web addresses (http and https) in the output are links. Hover over one to underline it, click it to open it in your default browser.
• The terminal uses the character widths of Unicode 11, so emoji and East Asian characters line up.
• It identifies itself as xterm-256color and shows 256 colors as well as 24-bit true color.
• The bundled MesloLGS Nerd Font contains the Powerline and Nerd Font symbols, so prompts from oh-my-zsh, powerlevel10k or Starship look right. See Appearance.

Keys in the terminal

On macOS, the shortcuts of kaiport use ⌘, so Ctrl combinations such as ⌃C, ⌃R or ⌃W reach the shell as usual. The Option key works as Meta key: ⌥B and ⌥F move the cursor word by word in bash and zsh.

On Windows and Linux, the shortcuts of kaiport use Ctrl, so a few keys that shells use as well are taken while you type in the terminal:

Close tabs and windows

⌘W/CtrlW closes the active tab and ends its sessions. When the last tab of a window closes, the window closes too. When the last terminal window closes, the start window comes back.

Related:

• Split panes
• Appearance
• Keyboard shortcuts