First impressions

[gwww]

Thanks @wez! What an ambitious project!

I currently use iTerm2, but I'm always looking for something better, faster, ... What attracts me to wezterm is the configuration; I prefer editable config. In playing, since I discovered wezterm on Hacker News, I wanted to share my observations. I can open bugs, feature requests, or what ever you wish. Or, it stops with this note. I'm still appreciative of your energy in creating this and I appreciate your "side project" status on this work!

I'm running nightly from about two nights ago on MacOS 11.1, x86.

Tab bar

c.enable_tab_bar = true
c.hide_tab_bar_if_only_one_tab = false

Tab bar still shows when one tab is open. Bug? (c. is the Lua table where I build up my config.)

Font selection

I've use this font for years: https://github.com/powerline/fonts/tree/master/Inconsolata-g. I can't get wezterm to recognize it. It does have a weird style called g instead of a more typical style such as bold, italic, etc. Bug? I'm using Fira Code as my backup.

Initial delay

When I open wezterm and type a command, for example ls -l, the first time there is a delay between 1-2 seconds. Here's the output from time running ls -l twice in a row on a fresh launch of wezterm:

exa -lh  0.01s user 0.00s system 0% cpu 1.719 total
exa -lh  0.01s user 0.00s system 71% cpu 0.015 total

This does not happen all the time. I can reproduce it "sometimes", not sure what condition is triggering it.

Resources

I wrote a dump little bash script to monitor CPU and memory, to compare against iTerm2:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

echo "WezTerm  iTerm"
while true; do
  wez=`ps acxo 'pid %cpu rss command'|grep wezterm|tr -s ' '|cut -d ' ' -f 2-3`
  iterm=`ps acxo 'pid %cpu rss command'|grep iTerm2|tr -s ' '|cut -d ' ' -f 2-3`
  echo "$wez  $iterm"
  sleep 1
done

With both wez and iTerm idle I see this:

0.6 129564  2.0 201924
0.4 129564  1.4 201924
0.4 129564  1.5 201924
0.4 129576  0.8 201924
0.4 129580  1.1 201924
0.4 129580  6.1 201924
0.4 129584  3.7 201924
0.4 129584  2.5 201924

CPU is always lower. Memory seemed to vary (although not seen is test run data above).

When running tree in wezterm and iTerm idle:

89.2 141700  0.3 202756
96.6 151132  0.8 202756
74.0 158580  1.5 202756
101.7 166932  2.1 202756
159.9 403760  2.5 202756
96.0 254852  0.4 202756
101.3 260220  0.4 202756
99.4 262836  0.5 202756
88.9 267988  0.2 202756
68.5 271968  0.2 202756
75.6 276280  0.9 202756
93.6 288556  0.9 202756
95.8 302744  0.1 202756
46.6 311212  0.3 202756
5.7 311280  4.9 202756

When running tree in iTerm and wezterm idle:

0.4 311880  5.9 202572
0.3 311892  125.8 202968
0.2 311904  148.7 203564
0.2 311916  151.5 203548
0.3 311920  151.5 203368
0.3 311928  149.2 203356
0.3 311928  127.2 203332
0.2 311932  137.7 203840
0.2 311940  144.6 204080
0.3 311944  134.0 203812
0.2 311956  133.8 203740
0.2 311972  136.6 203700
0.2 311976  126.9 203376
0.2 311976  96.3 203320
0.4 311976  14.5 203260
0.4 311980  4.7 203180

The interesting part is that iTerm finishes quicker.

tree on wezterm:  2.46s user 2.98s system 29% cpu 18.729 total
tree on iTerm2:   2.77s user 3.13s system 43% cpu 13.627 total

Bitrot

I had a case where I did a Cmd + and Cmd - (to change font sizes). wezterm was running full screen. Bits were left at the bottom of the screen that could not be removed. Restart was the only way to fix. I'm still trying to reproduce so I don't have more details.

Reload

It would be nice to have some indicator that a reload has happened. It is not clear when I do a save of my config whether a reload has happened or not.

Hide mouse cursor

Mouse cursor turns off when mouse idle and typing.

Quit prompt

Would be nice to not have to use mouse. Default OK by pressing Enter would be nice.

[wez]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll take a crack at responding to some of these points inline here, but it may make sense to promote one or two of the things you mentioned to separate issues!

Tab Bar

c.hide_tab_bar_if_only_one_tab = false
Tab bar still shows when one tab is open

Is that a transcription error? hide_tab_bar_if_only_one_tab=true is the config setting to make the tab bar hide when there is only a single tab.

Initial delay

It's not clear to me which part is delayed; is it the window showing up, or the text you're typing, or the command running and outputting?

Running WEZTERM_LOG=trace wezterm 2> /tmp/log-file.txt will capture some diagnostics with timing information that can help to isolate where things are slow.

Font Selection

Running WEZTERM_LOG=wezterm_font=trace wezterm will capture font-specific diagnostics that might help to figure out what's happening there.

Bit rot

Tracking in #605

Reload

Could perhaps show a toast notification when a reload is triggered? Please file an enhancement issue for this

Hide Mouse cursor

Please file an enhancement issue for this!

Quit Prompt

You can use Y and N to ack the prompts via the keyboard!

[gwww]

Doh - on the tab bar hiding.

I can't seem to replicate the performance lag on startup. Very intermittent... when I see it again will try and capture log.

Filed bug for font problem. Filed feature requests for hide mouse cursor and reload notification.

Thanks!!!

[bew]

About quit prompt, is this #580 ?