Guake Terminal is a drop-down terminal for Gnome.
The concept is nothing new, the ispiration comes from Yakuake (which is made in Qt) – with the difference that this puppy is made in GTK.
While the project has been active for years, the first releases were a little bit buggy, so I ended up uninstalling it without looking back.
This new release, though, looks quite solid, and it’s definitely worth a try.
Guake in action. Click the image to enlarge it.
Once started, nothing will appear, except a warning about the hotkey needed to make the terminal show up (default: F12).
Some features (old and new):
- Guake now features real transparency (as you can see in the screenshot above)
- configurable key hotkeys
- full screen (default: F11)
- multiple tab support
- can hide automagically when focus is lost (recommended !)
Getting Guake
If you’re on Ubuntu you can get the latest version straight from GetDeb. Otherwise, visit their download page to get the source.
How to make it start by default:
If you like it and would like to make it start automatically, go in System->Preferences->Sessions, click ‘Add’ and fill the form as follows:
Quick thoughts
In line with my tradition of disappointing Vadim P. by attaching opinions at the bottom of HowTos/Information-posts here’s what I like:
- now that the auto-hiding feature work properly the whole thing is very handy !
- guake remembers the full screen. If you bring it up (F12) then maximize it (F11) and hide it (F12), the next time you hit F12 it will come up maximized. Full screen terminal within a key press
And what I don’t like
- it doesn’t integrate (yet, at least) with Gnome Terminal’s color profiles. The colors of the default terminal look a bit ugly to me.
If you like it and would like to contribute or have any problem with it you can find the developers in the #guake channel on irc.freenode.net. Don’t forget to tell them you’re being sent there by me, so they know who to blame
And let me know what you think about it !
I’ve been using this terminal for several months now and I really like it. It’s great to have a terminal ready.
When you’re e.g. compiling something it’s also very easy to have a fast peek to see how far the process is already.
Finally I can watch movies in ASCII art while I am doing other things. Ok, that’s sick.
I gave it a try after getdeb published and liked it too.
btw, there is an option to make it integrate with the gnome-terminal preferences. I suspect it’s a bit buggy, but it does work.
Hey, Vadim P. I can’t find the option, any help ?
Regrading the Sessions screenshot, the command to start Guake seems to be “guake” and not “guake-terminal”.
Why do people have to replicate the same projects over and over again and call them new ?
http://tilda.sourceforge.net
@Marius: thank you ! Updated the screenshot.
Appearance – Fonts, and disable “Use system defaults”.
@Tiago: let’s start the flame !
Jokes aside, I don’t think anyone called Guake a new project, nor in the sense of age, nor in the sense of a new concept. In fact you’ll find Yakuake and Tilda referenced on the official homepage of Guake:
That said, what’s the problem ?
[...] Guake Terminal reaches 0.4 and looks mature Some features (old and new): [...]
Hi,
It is always good to see people using the application I helped to write! I’d like to comment about terminal colors. There is an open bug about it, we’re planning to support at least tango scheme, if you want to follow the evolution of this task, look at [0].
I’d like to comment Tiago Rodrigues’ comment to. We started a new project for two reasons:
1 -> Gabriel was learning python and tilda is writen in C.
2 -> I love gnome so my work (I “think” that gabriel and other guake contributors think the same) so I prefer to follow its standards and recomendations, like the human interface guidelines and tilda does not seem to follow that stuff.
But I understand what you say about working together to make a better software than everyone starts a new project. (this makes part of our second reason, we love gnome, so we want to use its stuff =)
[0] http://trac.guake-terminal.org/ticket/51
[...] l’avvio automatico. Per farlo partire in automatico ad ogni avvio, come illustrato in questo post si Stefano Forenza, basta andare su “Sistema–>Preferenze–>Applicazioni [...]