Terminal Recorder - t-rec

Blazingly fast terminal recorder that generates animated gif images for the web written in rust.

Demo

demo

Features

Screenshotting your terminal with 4 frames per second (every 250ms)
Generates high quality small sized animated gif images
Build-In idle frames detection and optimization (for super fluid presentations)
Applies (can be disabled) border decor effects like drop shadow
Runs (only) on MacOS
Uses native efficient APIs
Runs without any cloud service and entirely offline
No issues with terminal sizes larger than 80x24
No issues with fonts or colors
No issues with curses based programs
No issues with escape sequences
No record and replay - just one simple command to rule them all
Hidden feature: Record every window you want
Written in Rust 🦀

Install

with homebrew

sh ❯ brew install t-rec

with cargo

NOTE t-rec depends on imagemagick.

sh ❯ brew install imagemagick ❯ cargo install -f t-rec

NOTE -f just makes sure the latest version is installed

Usage

sh ❯ t-rec

or with specifying a different program to launch

sh ❯ t-rec /bin/sh

Full Options

```sh ❯ t-rec --help t-rec 0.3.0 Sven Assmann sven.assmann.it@gmail.com Blazingly fast terminal recorder that generates animated gif images for the web written in rust.

USAGE: t-rec [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [shell or program to launch]

FLAGS: -h, --help Prints help information -l, --ls-win If you want to see a list of windows available for recording by their id, you can set env var 'WINDOWID' to record this specific window only. -n, --natural If you want a very natural typing experience and disable the idle detection and sampling optimization. -V, --version Prints version information -v, --verbose Enable verbose insights for the curious.

OPTIONS: -b, --bg Background color when decors are used [default: white] [possible values: white, black, transparent] -d, --decor Decorates the animation with certain, mostly border effects. [default: shadow] [possible values: shadow, none]

ARGS: If you want to start a different program than $SHELL you can pass it here. For example '/bin/sh' ```

Disable idle detection & optimization

If you are not happy with the idle detection and optimization, you can disable it with the -n or --natural parameter. By doing so, you would get the very natural timeline of typing and recording as you do it. In this case there will be no optimizations performed.

Disable shadow border decor

In order to disable the drop shadow border decor you have to pass -p none as an argument. If your only want to change the color of the background you can use -b black for example to have a black background.

Hidden Gems

You can record not only the terminal but also every other window. There 2 ways to do so:

1) abuse the env var TERM_PROGRAM like this: - for example lets record a window 'Google Chrome' - make sure chrome is running and visible on screen

```sh ❯ TERM_PROGRAM="google chrome" t-rec

Frame cache dir: "/var/folders/m8/084p1v0x4770rpwpkrgl5b6h0000gn/T/trec-74728.rUxBx3ohGiQ2" Recording window: "Google Chrome 2" Press Ctrl+D to end recording

```

this is how it looks then: demo-chrome

2) use the env var WINDOWID like this: - for example let's record a VSCode window - figure out the window id program, and make it - make sure the window is visible on screen - set the variable and run t-rec

```sh ❯ t-rec --ls-win | grep -i code Code | 27600

set the WINDOWID variable and run t-rec

❯ WINDOWID=27600 t-rec

Frame cache dir: "/var/folders/m8/084p1v0x4770rpwpkrgl5b6h0000gn/T/trec-77862.BMYiHNRWqv9Y" Recording window id: 27600 Press Ctrl+D to end recording

```

this is how it looks then: demo-vscode

Contribute

To contribute to t-rec you can either checkout existing issues labeled with good first issue or open a new issue and describe your problem. Also every PR is welcome. Support for Linux and Windows needs to be done.

License

GNU GPL v3 license