Guake

Guake is a drop-down terminal for Linux written in Python with GTK 3 and the VTE terminal widget. It slides down from the top of the screen when you press a hotkey (F12 by default) and hides again on the next press, in the style of the console in first-person-shooter games. It was made for GNOME but runs on other desktops, and suits people who want a terminal one key away without managing a separate window.

Settings are stored in GSettings/dconf under /org/guake/ and edited through the preferences dialog (guake -p). guake --save-preferences FILE and guake --restore-preferences FILE export and import them. The dialog covers window size and position, the monitor to open on, transparency, fonts, a large set of bundled color palettes, a separate GTK theme, and global and local key bindings. A startup script can run when Guake starts.

Each tab can be split vertically or horizontally, and tabs and splits can be saved and restored between sessions. Most actions are available from the command line and over D-Bus, for example guake -n for a new tab, --split-vertical, -e to run a command in a tab, --rename-current-tab and --change-palette. Quick Open recognizes file paths and line numbers in output such as gcc errors, Python tracebacks and pytest reports and opens them in a configured editor with Ctrl+click. URLs and OSC 8 hyperlinks are clickable, and a per-directory .guake.yml file can set a tab's title.

Rendering, text handling and escape-sequence support come from VTE, so Guake has no GPU renderer of its own, no programming-font ligatures, and does not enable VTE's Sixel image support. On Wayland the built-in global hotkey may not work, and the documentation recommends binding guake-toggle as a custom shortcut in the desktop's keyboard settings instead.