terminator sends all commands to all terminals at alt-a

[Guus Bonnema]

I run terminator version 1.91 from the most recent version of Fedora with all software updated.

I have noticed before that terminator on some occasions copies the input on one terminal to all other terminals. That way I accidentally enter the same vi-commands in one source as I do in some other source. In this case I had 2 terminators running, one with a split window. The split window terminator had 2 source files open in vi, one for each split. The the second terminator was unsplit and was where I was compiling and testing my program.

While testing the program that runs Cursive (a rust version using ncurses) the input I put into the dialog appeared in both my vi session on the other terminator terminal. After issueing a request with Cursive, I entered some git-commands which also appeared in my vi sessions. Finally I quit vi without saving in one file, which also terminated the other file! Then I did `exit` on one of the splits and all terminators were closed.

Apparantly, under some circomstances, terminator echo's all command to all terminator instances.

P.S. Terminator didn't just copy terminal commands, but also dialog input from my ncurses/Cursive program.

The problem is that it does not happen consistently. So I am hoping, that I am not the only one having this problem.

[Guus Bonnema (gbonnema)]

Before I was certain that this was a terminator bug, I created an issue in github for Cursive which you can find under https://github.com/gyscos/Cursive/issues/334. It also contains 2 screenprints that show the problem.

[Guus Bonnema (gbonnema)]

Is it possible that Terminator has some shortcut that sends a command to all terminator incarnations?

[Guus Bonnema (gbonnema)]

I found the shortcut that causes terminator to send the commands to all terminator instances. It is `alt-a`. The problem started from accessing the menu of an ncurses program that I was testing at the moment and the menu item started with an `a` (account). So I pressed `alt-a` and when the program didn't respond I just used a different menu option to enter the menu and navigated to account. What I didn't know was that all input I entered there after was sent to all terminals creating havoc on what I was doing (using vi).

Apparantly, what happened was that the input meant for the ncurses application was intercepted by terminator and interpreted before the program could use it.

Is there any way to prevent terminator of using input meant for an ncurses program?

[Guus Bonnema (gbonnema)]

As someone on the project pointed out, if you hit alt-a without knowing of its existence or while in an text-user-interface program (using ncurses, termion etc), unaware of what it is doing, it could be pretty dangerous if you subsequently enter userid / password in some other application (irc chat).

Is there a way to block the sending of messages over all terminator sessions?

[Roman Kovtyukh (hellodeargrandma)]

Hello, Guus Bonnema!

There is in Terminator way to show user the current state of this feature -- icon in title bar for "parent" window and title bar colour for "childs".

But if you switched off the title bar, you really can't understand if this feature is turned on.

[Roman Kovtyukh (hellodeargrandma)]

So I think the main idea of this bug report could be like this: "User can't see the state of broadcasting feature if title bar switched off."

[Guus Bonnema (gbonnema)]

I don't think I have the title bar switch off. I see a title bar, but I do not see any indication that it is broadcasting my commands to the other instances of terminator.

The problem is exacerbated by the gnome desktop using multiple desktops so you only see one instance at a time and may not be aware what is happening on the other occurrences.

Could you show me how the terminator title bar shows that it is broadcasting?

[Guus Bonnema (gbonnema)]

Yes, I can see a very small change in color on the title bar in the icon. But only if you already know what it means you might see it, and even then you might not see it because the icon change is pretty subtle.

Is it possible to have the word "**broadcasting** (alt-o to switch off)" on the title bar?