Yakuake: a Quake-style terminal emulator based on KDE Konsole technology
March 4th, 2007 by anaEntry submitted by Sam Mirshafie. DPOTD needs your help, please contribute !
Maybe, you are a novice Linux user that do not yet understand the convenience of the command terminal, or you are an experienced user that always have some console windows sitting idly in the task bar. In order to do many tasks really efficiently, you should use the console, and in order to use the console effectively, you should use a terminal application such as Yakuake.
Whenever you need to use the terminal, just hit F12 (or any key that you’ve assigned) and Yakuake will slide down from the top of your screen. Since it is based on Konsole, it has got tabs and background transparency.
Interface
Yakuake’s design is quite different from other KDE applications. The tab bar is designed for transparency, and if you click on an active tab, you get a rename field. However, right-clicking on a tab has no effect. Yakuake relies much more on keyboard shortcuts (which I like but others might find disturbing).
Under the tab bar, there’s a special title bar. In the right corner, there are three buttons. Yakuake can be configured to go away whenever it loses focus, which many users find clever (not me!). So, the first button, the one with the + sign, controls the retract behavior. If the + button is pressed, Yakuake will stay on top until you hit the activation key (F12). The middle button has a downward pointing arrow, which gives you a quick configuration menu, and next to it, there’s the X button, which quits Yakuake.
Yakuake in action (click in the image to get a larger image)
Configuring Yakuake
One thing that users may find confusing is that Yakuake do not have a single configure dialog. The middle titlebar button gives you some of the options; such as terminal proportions, animation duration, and access and control keys. (Tip: make sure to check the control key dialog so you know all the keyboard shortcuts.). If you right click on the terminal body, you get a context menu with terminal-related options, such as appearence, history and character encoding.
Get it now
Yakuake is in the Ubuntu Edgy/Dapper and Debian repositories.
Yakuake is inspired by Kuake, and there is a similar Gnome application called Tilda, both are in the repositories as well.
Rate this post:(43 votes, average: 4.4 out of 5)
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March 4th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I would suggest, even for gnome users, to use yakuake over tilda. Since the tilda version in ubuntu edgy it got extremely slow.
To use yakuake in gnome just install it, and download and install this theme: http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=45732
you will need it to have usable tabs, because gnome can’t handle the transparancy stuff.
March 5th, 2007 at 2:46 am
Hi
I used to like Yakuake, until I tried to go back to the roots and use rxvt. Fortunately.
rxvt, simply put, usually starts faster than Yakuake drops, and has all the features a terminal should, together with only xterm and Konsole, at the time I switched.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
I use a similar app called “yeahconsole”, which is also in Debian. I have it setup to use urxvt as the terminal for sliding in/out.
March 9th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Thanks for including tilda for gnome users. I added it to my standard desktop layout. It’s just great in its simplicity.
Cheers
March 11th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
tilda is not really “gnome”, it depends only on gtk and libvte.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
The default f12 shortcut collides with f12 to search on ubuntu, and when I try to change searches shortcut, it doesn’t stick, so I cant get yakuake to drop down.
March 12th, 2007 at 2:35 am
Samurai champloo ftw =D
March 12th, 2007 at 10:53 am
I agree, this is a great app. I have it load up at startup, and it’s great to be able to hit F12 to get the console.
Well recommended.
March 12th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
That’s really cool. This may be blasphemous to say here, but I wish there were such a thing for WinXP since that’s what I’m stuck using @ work.
March 12th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I don’t get it, what’s the difference between YaKuake and “original” Kuake? The YaKuake apt-cache description and homepage were of no use in describing what the difference is.
March 17th, 2007 at 7:15 am
@Tim G,
From the looks of things, Yakuake supports tabs, where as Kuake is a single instance.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:26 am
For me this is a must have. The only problem is when I go to work I’m constantly hitting F12 on my Windows computer.
April 17th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Cool!!!
December 11th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
I love Yakuake, use the snot out of it. However, one similar app I use under OSX, that I DESPERATELY want under linux is one that slides out for you to use as a sticky note.
To see what I am talking about - http://www.chatelp.org/?page_id=5
March 6th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
any1 know how to make it load on startup in ubuntu?