13

How do you change the text-cursor/caret in Terminal to block, I-Beam, or underline.

Braiam
  • 69,112
programking
  • 1,541

3 Answers3

17

In recent versions of gnome-terminal, you can use the following escape sequences to change the cursor:

  • \e[0 q or \e[ q: reset to whatever's defined in the profile settings
  • \e[1 q: blinking block
  • \e[2 q: steady block
  • \e[3 q: blinking underline
  • \e[4 q: steady underline
  • \e[5 q: blinking I-beam
  • \e[6 q: steady I-beam

You can print these by e.g. echo -ne '\e[5 q'.

This has the advantage/disadvantage (based on your use case) compared to the gconftool method that it influences the given tab only, and not all the tabs that use the given profile.

egmont
  • 8,990
  • 1
  • 34
  • 47
7

In addition to the GUI method, you can also change the cursor shape from the command-line:

$ gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/cursor_shape <VALUE>

The possible values are "block" to use a block cursor, "ibeam" to use a vertical line cursor, or "underline" to use an underline cursor.

To get the current value:

$ gconftool-2 --get /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/cursor_shape
block
Sylvain Pineau
  • 63,229
6

To change your text-cursor/caret:

  1. Open up Terminal.
  2. Right click the terminal window.
  3. Hover your mouse over the option Profiles.
  4. Select Profile Prefrences.

As seen here:

Just a terminal window

5.Here you will find the option, Cursor Shape.

Cusor shape

6.Enjoy using Terminal with a different Caret.

programking
  • 1,541