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Update why-looks-bad-on-macos.question.md (Textualize#2800)
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willmcgugan authored Jun 19, 2023
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Expand Up @@ -10,9 +10,30 @@ alt_titles:
- "macOS terminal"
---

The default macOS `Terminal.app` is getting rather old now; it has problems
such as being limited to just 256 colors, being slow to draw and not all
box-drawing characters are fully-supported. We recommend installing a newer
terminal such as [iTerm2](https://iterm2.com/),
[Kitty](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/) or
[WezTerm](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/).
You may find that the default macOS Terminal.app doesn't render Textual apps (and likely other TUIs) very well, particuarily when it comes to box characters.
For instance, you may find it displays misaligned blocks and lines like this:

<img width="1042" alt="Screenshot 2023-06-19 at 10 43 02" src="https://github.com/Textualize/textual/assets/554369/e61f3876-3dd1-4ac8-b380-22922c89c7d6">

You can (mostly) fix this by opening settings -> profiles > Text tab, and changing the font settings.
We have found that Menlo Regular font, with a character spacing of 1 and line spacing of 0.805 produces reasonable results.
If you want to use another font, you may have to tweak the line spacing until you get good results.

<img width="737" alt="Screenshot 2023-06-19 at 10 44 00" src="https://github.com/Textualize/textual/assets/554369/0a052a93-b1fd-4327-9d33-d954b51a9ad2">

With these changes, Textual apps render more as intended:

<img width="1042" alt="Screenshot 2023-06-19 at 10 43 23" src="https://github.com/Textualize/textual/assets/554369/a0c4aa05-c509-4ac1-b0b8-e68ce4433f70">

Even with this *fix*, Terminal.app has a few limitations.
It is limited to 256 colors, and can be a little slow compared to more modern alternatives.
Fortunately there are a number of free terminal emulators for macOS which produces high quality results.
We recommend installing a newer terminal such as [iTerm2](https://iterm2.com/), [Kitty](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/) or [WezTerm](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/).

*Terminal.app colors*

<img width="762" alt="Screenshot 2023-06-19 at 11 00 12" src="https://github.com/Textualize/textual/assets/554369/e0555d23-e141-4069-b318-f3965c880208">

*iTerm2 colors*

<img width="1002" alt="Screenshot 2023-06-19 at 11 00 25" src="https://github.com/Textualize/textual/assets/554369/9a8cde57-5121-49a7-a2e0-5f6fc871b7a6">

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