FAQ

The questions that recur, answered directly - each with the page that owns the full story. For upstream compositor bugs rather than usage questions, see Known issues.

Setup and the shortcut

Why doesn’t the terminal appear when I press my shortcut? First, the toggle must be a COSMIC custom shortcut running cosmic-ext-dropterm - DropTerm cannot register hotkeys itself (next question). Second, some Shift-modified custom shortcuts fail to fire on COSMIC; prefer an unshifted key like F12. The walk lives in README: Setting up the shortcut; the Shift bug is tracked in Known issues.

Why can’t DropTerm register its own global hotkey? COSMIC does not yet implement the XDG GlobalShortcuts portal, so no app can register one; binding a COSMIC custom shortcut is the only path today (Known issues).

Is there a Flatpak? No, and not for want of trying: cosmic-comp does not expose the layer-shell and toplevel-management protocols a true drop-down needs to sandboxed clients. A sandboxed DropTerm could not drop down at all (Known issues).

How do I uninstall it? Remove the two cosmic-ext-dropterm* binaries from /usr/bin and the io.github.l1br3_io.CosmicExtDropterm* files under /usr/share/{applications,icons,metainfo}/ - or, from a source checkout, sudo just uninstall (README: Installing).

Behavior

Why does the terminal hide when I click another window? Can I stop that? That is hide_on_focus_loss, on by default because a hotkey-driven drop-down lives on focus - click away, it is gone; press the key, it is back, shell intact. Write false to the key (Behavior tab in settings) to keep the overlay up while you work elsewhere (configuration).

Does my shell session survive the hide? What about a reboot? Each in its own way. Hiding preserves the live session - only the surface is destroyed, the PTY keeps running, so a sleep or an editor outlives every toggle. A reboot cannot preserve live processes; what restores is the layout: tabs with their directories, profiles, and renames save on change and come back on launch (session_persistence_enabled is the switch, on by default) (sessions).

Does copied text survive hiding the terminal? Yes - DropTerm keeps an invisible anchor window alive for exactly this reason, so the clipboard binding (and your last copy) outlives every hide/show cycle. And the copy itself no longer cares about focus: copying while the terminal is visible but unfocused (or even hidden) lands all the same, where it used to vanish silently until a restart. The mechanics are in Known issues.

Why can’t I select text while vim (or tmux, htop) is running? Those programs turn on mouse reporting, and the terminal hands every press to the program - that is the mode working as asked. Hold Shift to take the pointer back: Shift+drag selects, Shift+right-click opens the context menu, and Copy (Ctrl+Shift+C) copies that selection like any other. The same escape hatch alacritty, kitty, and gnome-terminal offer; the scroll wheel stays the program’s even with Shift held.

Why doesn’t DropTerm appear in the dock or Alt-Tab? Can I get it back? That is the default: the app hides from both, and you summon it with your shortcut, the panel applet, or the CLI. If you would rather have a DropTerm entry to click, write show_in_dock: true - the trade is that the entry also joins Alt-Tab, because the dock icon and the switcher window are the same mapped window underneath (configuration).

Why does the window flash or recreate when it hides? Hiding destroys the layer surface and the next show builds a fresh one - deliberately, to sidestep a cosmic-comp bug other layer-shell clients hit when a surface is updated after its role is destroyed. You are seeing the designed path, not a glitch (Known issues).

How do I keep it from covering my panel or dock? Write respect_panel and the drop-down places itself inside the compositor’s usable area on its configured layer. With an autohide panel expect a few pixels of reserved handle strip (configuration).

Tabs and suggestions

Which shells does it run? Whatever you point it at: the shell key takes a path (/usr/bin/fish), the settings picker lists /etc/shells, and unset falls back to $SHELL, then /bin/sh. Profiles can run anything - ssh web-prod, htop - with their own directory, colors, and environment (configuration, profiles).

Why did my tab title change to “Terminal N”? Titles follow tab_title_mode: by default the shell’s own title (OSC 0/2) shows, and a program that clears its title - or never sets one - falls back to Terminal N. A manual rename always wins; the five modes are in configuration.

Why don’t autosuggestions work over ssh? They are local-machine knowledge by design: history comes from this tab and the spawn-time shell, paths and command names from this machine’s filesystem and $PATH, so a tab running ssh stays silent rather than suggesting your local directories on the remote host (autosuggestions).

Why is the suggestion cut off with an …? When there is no room, will it still accept? The ghost clips to what fits - the longest prefix plus a two-cell ellipsis - exactly fish’s rule, and below three free columns nothing draws. The clip is display-only: pressing Right always accepts the full suggestion, never the truncated text (autosuggestions).

Can I turn the suggestions off? autosuggestions_enabled: false is the kill switch; path, command-name, and flag completion each have their own key if you want history-only or any subset (configuration).

Running two copies

Can I run two instances at once? Not as the same identity: one running instance owns the surface, and a second launch just toggles it - that is the single-instance design. Development builds get their own -dev identity (separate config, bus name, and launcher), so a dev copy and your installed DropTerm do run side by side without seeing each other (development).