---
title: "Terminals"
description: "Choose how to run Creator Terminal and check which pictures, mouse controls and keys your terminal supports."
canonical: "https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/terminals/"
last_updated: 2026-10-30
---

# Terminals

Choose how to run Creator Terminal and check which pictures, mouse controls and keys your terminal supports.

The stage (the canvas in Figma and Rive, the Composition panel in After Effects) can show
pictures or characters. The app also has a window of its own.

## How the stage is drawn

The animation is rendered by ThorVG, the renderer inside the dotLottie players, and shown in the
best way the terminal has:

As a picture, where the terminal can show one:

| the terminal | the picture |
|---|---|
| Ghostty, kitty, WezTerm, Konsole | kitty's graphics |
| Windows Terminal (the only one on Windows), foot, mlterm, contour, an older Konsole, xterm started with `-ti vt340`, VS Code's terminal with `terminal.integrated.enableImages` on | Sixel |
| iTerm2 | its inline images |

Elsewhere, in characters, as finely as the terminal draws them:

| the terminal | the stage |
|---|---|
| GNOME Terminal, Ptyxis, Tilix, xfce4-terminal and others built on VTE 0.78 or later | octants: 2×4 pixels a cell |
| VTE 0.60 to 0.77, Konsole, Alacritty 0.13.2 or later, Zed 1.14 or later, VS Code 1.108 or later | sextants: 2×3 pixels a cell |
| Apple's Terminal | quadrants: 2×2 pixels a cell (256 colours, dithered, before macOS 26) |
| any other, inside tmux, or one that doesn't say which it is | half blocks |
| the Linux text console (Ctrl+Alt+F3) | half blocks in its 16 colours, keyboard only |

Drawn in characters, the stage keeps its proportions and follows zoom and pan.

Settings › Appearance › **Stage pictures** picks one from the next start: kitty, Sixel, iTerm2,
half blocks, sextants, quadrants or octants (`"graphics"` in settings.json: `kitty`, `sixel`,
`iterm`, `blocks`, `sextants`, `quadrants`, `octants`, or `auto`). Use it inside tmux, over SSH,
or with a font that has sextants in Apple's Terminal (Cascadia Code, Iosevka).

## What each terminal gets

| | Ghostty | kitty | WezTerm | its own window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| picture, panels, pixel-precise mouse | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| fastest pictures (shared memory) | ✓ | compressed instead | compressed instead | ✓ |
| ⌘ shortcuts | Ghostty keeps ⌘Z, ⌘⇧Z, ⌘A and ⌘←↑→↓; use **⌃A** to select layers (see [Keys](https://terminal.lottiefiles.com/docs/keys.md)) | ✓ | after `config.enable_kitty_keyboard = true` in `~/.wezterm.lua` | ✓ |
| pick keys together | ⇧-click | ctrl- or ⌥-click (⇧-click selects text) | ctrl- or ⌥-click (⇧-click selects text) | ⇧-click |
| move a rigged part’s drawing | arrows | ⌃ drag or arrows | ⌃ drag or arrows | ⌃ drag or arrows |

On a rigged character part, ⌃ drag or the arrows move the drawing; the arrows work everywhere.
⌘ mouse gestures in the app's own window keep their usual behaviour.

Tested with Ghostty 1.3.1, kitty 0.49.2 and WezTerm 20240203.

With Sixel (tested in Windows Terminal 1.24) or iTerm2's pictures (not tested):

- the stage, the left panel's icons, LottieFiles' tiles and Agents' cards are pictures, but the
  rest of the panels and the score are characters (the chosen tool is told by its name's colour, without a pill under it);
- what's drawn over the stage (the selected layer's box, handles, anchor and path, the hover
  outline, snap guides, the marquee, the grid) is painted into its picture, written again as
  it changes;
- playback is slower, more so over SSH;
- Windows Terminal draws Sixel at 10×20 a cell, so a font of other proportions stretches the
  picture slightly.

Agents’ takes, versions, log cards and idea pictures also show in coloured characters
where the terminal shows no pictures, using the same blocks as the stage.

With the stage in characters (half blocks, sextants, quadrants, octants), what's drawn over it
is in characters too, where it has a form in them:

- shown: the selected layers' box as a thin outline round the cells it spans, with a mark at
  each corner, and the selected layer's anchor (a box under three cells a side shows its anchor
  only); a gradient's handles; the line to a layer's parent; the text caret; the skeleton;
- not shown, as they need pictures: the motion path, snap guides, the onion skin, the hover
  outline, the marquee, the grid and the measures.

Undo and redo:

- `u` / `⇧U` and `⌃Z` / `⌃Y` work in every terminal.
- `Ctrl+Shift+Z` redoes only where the terminal tells it from `Ctrl+Z` (kitty's keyboard
  protocol, and Windows).
- VS Code's terminal on Windows keeps `Ctrl+Q` (quick open): `q` quits there.

## Its own window

Creator Terminal also runs in a window of its own: the same app, with a terminal built in, drawn on the
GPU. It looks the same on every computer, whatever terminal and fonts you have, and changes none
of your settings.

- Run `creator-tui --window` to open it from a terminal.
- Open it from ~/Applications or Spotlight, the Start Menu, or the app menu on Linux, where the
  install line puts it.
- On Windows, `creator-tui` opened from Explorer or a shortcut of its own opens in the window too.
  Typed in a terminal, it stays in the terminal.
- Its letters are JetBrains Mono, built in. Symbols it lacks, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and emoji
  come from the computer's own fonts.
- ⌘= and ⌘- make the font bigger and smaller, ⌘0 puts it back. On a small screen it opens a point
  or two smaller.
- ⌘V pastes, a picture copied alone too. Dropping files on it pastes their paths. ⌥ types what it
  types on a Mac (⌥G is ©).
- ⌘W or closing it quits as `⌃Q` does: with edits not saved or not synced, a box asks first.
  ⌘Q quits at once. ⌃⌘F fills the screen.
- On Linux and Windows the keys are Ctrl+Shift+V (paste), Ctrl+Shift+W (close) and Ctrl+=
  Ctrl+- Ctrl+0. On Windows Alt+F4 closes it, and the Windows key stays Windows' own.
- Installing an update puts a missing app back (on Linux, on a desktop), unless the install line
  left it out (`CREATOR_TUI_APP=0`, on macOS and Linux); opening the editor doesn't.

It runs on macOS, Linux (X11 or Wayland) and Windows 10 1809 or later.