Fbpad is a small Linux framebuffer virtual terminal. It manages many terminals through single-letter tags; each tag can hold two terminals. The following table lists fbpad's key-bindings (m-k means pressing k, while holding the alt key). The list of tags or commands can be can be configured in the ~/.fbpad file.

============== ======================================= KEY COMMAND ============== ======================================= m-c execute a shell (configured in ~/.fbpad) m-; like m-c but with switching signals enabled m-x switch to tag 'x' or execute command 'x' m-j switch between the current tag's terminals m-k like m-j m-p show tag summary m-o jump to the previous tag m-tab show the next terminal m-s create a text screenshot m-y redraw the terminal c-m-e reload .fbpad file c-m-l lock the screen; use PASS to unlock c-m-o disable/enable tag switching c-m-q quit fbpad m-, scroll up m-. scroll down m-= split tag horizontally/vertically m-- unsplit tag ============== =======================================

To execute a single program in fbpad, the program and its arguments can be passed as command line arguments of fbpad. Fbpad executes the specified program in a terminal, disables all terminal switching commands, and exits as soon as the program finishes.

Programs like fbpdf, fbvnc, and fbff read the FBDEV environment variable, which can specify the framebuffer device and its drawing region, like "/dev/fb0:1438x448+1+451". Fbpad defines this environment variable when executing a program, so that if a tag is split, the program running in its terminal is limited to its corresponding framebuffer region.

SETTING UP

Fbpad reads $HOME/.fbpad file at startup. The format of this file is as follows:

Fonts: regular, italic, bold

font /path/to/0.tf /path/to/1.tf /path/to/2.tf

Tags list

tags xnlhtr01234uiva

Saved tags; it must be a subset of tags (the scrsnap feature)

saved ui

Other variables

term linux

Commands to execute with m-X; m-c and m-; execute a shell

command c mksh command ; mksh

Text screenshot file path

scrshot /tmp/scr

Lock screen password

#pass password

Quit confirmation key

#quitkey x

Brighten bold text

brighten 1

Foreground and background colors

color ffefef 333333

Basic 16-color palette

color16 000000 ff5f87 00d787 cdcd00 00afff ff87df 00cdcd e5e5e5 7f7f7f ff0000 00ff00 ffff00 5c5cff ff00ff 00ffff ffffff

Cursor color

cursor 444444 ffbb55

Border color and width

border ffbb55 3

At least one font must be specified in the font line to use fbpad. Two font formats are supported: fbpad's tinyfont and PSF2. For testing you can try https://dev.rudi.ir/courr.tf. Tinyfont files can be generated using fbpad_mkfn program (https://dev.rudi.ir/).

The saved line specifies the list tags that use fbpad's scrsnap feature. Framebuffer memory is saved and reloaded for terminals in these tags, which is very convenient when using programs that modify the framebuffer simultaneously, like fbpdf.

256-COLOR MODE

Fbpad supports xterm's 256-color extension, but most programs will not use this extension, unless the $TERM terminfo entry declares this feature. For this purpose, fbpad-256 terminfo file can be created to contain (the two-space identation should be ignored):

fbpad-256, use=linux, U8#0, colors#256, pairs#32767, setab=\E[%?%p1%{8}%<%t4%p1%d%e%p1%{16}%<%t10%p1%{8}%-%d%e48;5;%p1%d%;m, setaf=\E[%?%p1%{8}%<%t3%p1%d%e%p1%{16}%<%t9%p1%{8}%-%d%e38;5;%p1%d%;m,

Which can be installed with tic command:

$ tic -x ./fbpad-256

The following line should be added to shell's startup script:

export TERM=fbpad-256

Note that in order to use this feature and italic fonts in Vim, adding fbpad-256 terminfo is not necessary. Including the following lines in the vimrc file should enable them:

set t_ZH= set t_Co=256

PERFORMANCE

To improve text rendering performance in fbpad, you may redefine fb_set() in pad.c based on the color depth and encoding of your framebuffer. For instance, if using a 32-bit little-endian RGB framebuffer, you may redefine it as follows:

static void fb_set(char *d, unsigned r, unsigned g, unsigned b) { d[0] = b; d[1] = g; d[2] = r; }