charmbracelet / charmbracelet/bubbletea

EnterAltScreen doesn't create true alternate screen in Terminal.app - adds blank spaces instead

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#1,455 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
Go
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Description

**Describe the bug**
When using `tea.EnterAltScreen` in Terminal.app on macOS, the alternate screen is not working correctly. Instead of creating a true alternate screen buffer (like other TUI applications do), BubbleTea appears to simulate it by adding blank spaces at the top of the terminal, pushing existing content up. The user can still scroll up to see the previous terminal content.

**Setup**
- OS: macOS
- Shell: zsh
- Terminal Emulator: Terminal.app (default macOS terminal)

**To Reproduce**
Execute in the bubbletea repo, `examples/fullscreen/main.go`

**Expected behavior**
- Previous terminal content should be completely removed (not scrollable)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by running examples/fullscreen/main.go in macOS Terminal.app with zsh and compare its behavior with other TUI applications. Trace how tea.EnterAltScreen is handled, then verify that the previous terminal content is no longer visible or scrollable when the alternate screen is entered.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go, macos
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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