[Terminal support]: Generic xterm

Open Beginner friendly

#550 opened on Sep 6, 2026 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty: 2/5
Estimated time: 1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness: 75/100

Issue type: Feature
Clarity: Mostly clear
Activity status: Active
Tech stack: shell
Domain: cli

Research direction

Start in apply-colors.sh and review the apply_xterm() approach referenced from issue #516, along with the xterm control-sequence documentation linked here. Add generic xterm handling so themes are applied through the described OSC/CSI sequences rather than reported as unsupported, and verify that xterm-derived terminals no longer fall through to that case.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

help-needed terminal-support

Terminal name

Generic xterm

Project link

https://invisible-island.net/xterm/

Platform(s)

Linux, Other / cross-platform

How does this terminal store its color scheme / theme?

xterm doesn't use a config file for colors — it's set live via OSC/CSI control sequences (documented at https://www.xfree86.org/current/ctlseqs.html), so applying a theme means printing escape sequences rather than editing a file. The original request (#516) includes a mock-up apply_xterm() implementation using this approach.

Additional context

Previously requested in #516. That issue was closed without support ever being added to apply-colors.sh — reopening as a standalone, trackable request. Supporting generic xterm control sequences would also benefit other xterm-derived terminals that currently fall through to the "unsupported terminal" case.

Contribution

I would be willing to submit a pull request implementing this

Dominant language: Shell
Stars: 10.3k
Forks: 633
Avg merge: 2h 31m
Merged PRs (30d): 5

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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