OPTCVT(1)

💖 tcvt(1) — two column virtual terminal 💖

okay bestie, sit down, because this one is genuinely iconic. it's tcvt, a two column virtual terminal, and it's giving main character energy for your tiny terminal. 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

tcvt [-c columns] [-h] [-r] [--] program options
optcvt program options

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So here's the vibe. The two column virtual terminal emulates a virtual terminal inside another virtual terminal. the emulated one is twice as tall and half as wide as the original terminal, no cap. The upper half of the virtual terminal goes to the left, and the lower half goes to the right of the original terminal. An ANSI terminal is emulated. periodt. 💅

Now, while tcvt does this conversion unconditionally — she does not care, she commits — the optcvt is the one you bring to smaller terminals. optcvt will only invoke tcvt if the terminal is wide enough, and otherwise it will simply exec the passed program. lowkey the most considerate friend in the group chat. 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

Both programs take a program and options to that program. They execute the given program. And if no program is given? a shell is executed. cute, right? 🐚

In addition, the tcvt tool accepts a few switches. slay.

• -c, --columns — Specify the number of columns. This defaults to two. yes, two. the whole personality. 💜
• -h, --help — Print a quick option overview and exit. a little summary, then she's out. ✨
• -r, --reverse — Order columns so that the last one is the left most. mirror moment. 🪞
• -- — Signal end of options. that's it, that's the flag. 🚩

Any non-option argument signals the end of options for tcvt.

💀 EXIT STATUS 💀

The exit status of the wrapped program is propagated. she passes it along, she's loyal. 🫶

When tcvt produces an error of its own, 255 is returned. not a vibe, but you gotta know.

🐛 BUGS 🐛

Not all ANSI terminal features are emulated. so sometimes rendering gets weird, and honestly, relatable. 😭

If you experience rendering issues, you can export the environment variable TCVT_DEVEL. It causes tcvt to crash upon seeing an unimplemented character sequence. 💀 The error message includes the unrecognized sequence. it's giving "diagnostic queen" — she will tell you exactly what she couldn't handle.

ngl, a deliberate crash sounds scary, but that's the whole point here: it's a debugging mode, not a daily driver. 🧚

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• screen(1)
• splitvt(1)

🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Helmut Grohne <helmut@subdivi.de>

⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

tcvt is available at http://subdivi.de/~helmut/tcvt/.

and that's the whole page, bestie — Apr 15, 2012, tcvt(1), go forth and split those columns 💖✨🎀