Konsole

Konsole
	Screenshot of Konsole in KDE Plasma 6
Developer(s)	Lars Doelle, Robert Knight
Stable release	24.12.1 / 5 January 2025
Repository	https://github.com/KDE/konsole https://invent.kde.org/kde/konsole
Written in	C++ (KDE Frameworks, Qt)
Type	Terminal emulator
License	GPL-2.0-or-later
Website	konsole.kde.org

Konsole is a free and open-source terminal emulator graphical application which is part of KDE Applications and ships with the KDE desktop environment. Konsole was originally written by Lars Doelle.^[2] It ls licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later^[3]^[4]^[5] and the GNU Free Documentation License.^[6]

KDE applications, including Dolphin, Kate,^[7] KDevelop, Kile, Konversation, Konqueror, and Krusader, use Konsole to provide embedded terminal functionality via Kpart.

Features

Built-in support for bi-directional text display.
Tabbed terminals. Tab titles update dynamically depending on the current activity in the terminal.
Translucent backgrounds^[8]
Split-view mode
Directory and SSH bookmarking
Customizable color schemes
Customizable key bindings
Notifications about silence or activity in a terminal
Incremental search
Can open Dolphin or the user's preferred file manager at the terminal program's current directory^[9]
Export of output in plain text or HTML format
Multiple profile support
Text reflow^[10]

Internals

Up to the KDE 4.0, Konsole internal functionality was split into a backend and frontend parts. The backend was represented by a terminal emulator (the DEC VT102 + xterm emulation program) and the frontend that included terminal display and user interface used to display output characters on a window screen or a printer.^[11]

With newer versions Konsole on Linux systems uses PTY (pseudoterminal interface) abstraction implemented by KPty KDE framework introduced in 2014.^{[citation needed]}

Gallery

Konsole split-view modes
Left-to-right
Top-to-bottom

Notes

^ "Konsole". Retrieved 13 January 2025.
^ "Moving to kdebase (D8f74118) · Commits · Utilities / Konsole · GitLab". 28 October 1998.
^ "COPYING.LIB". github.com/KDE/konsole/blob/master/COPYING.LIB. 31 March 2022.
^ "konsole". kde.org/applications/system/org.kde.konsole.
^ "COPYING". github.com/KDE/konsole/blob/master/COPYING. 31 March 2022.
^ "COPYING.DOC". github.com/KDE/konsole/blob/master/COPYING.DOC. 31 March 2022.
^ Cullmann, Christoph (January 6, 2004). "Writing a Kate Plugin". kate-editor.org. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
^ "Konsole - KDE UserBase Wiki". userbase.kde.org. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
^ "New features in Konsole in KDE 4.0". The KDE Source Repository. 2008-01-05.
^ "Konsole - KDE Invent". invent.kde.org. 2 January 2021. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
^ "doc/developer/design/historic/architecture-overview · master · Utilities / Konsole · GitLab". GitLab. Retrieved 2022-10-31.