Add OSC 52 clipboard support - #53
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Handle the OSC 52 escape sequence (ESC ] 52 ; Pc ; Pd ST) so that remote applications can set the local clipboard — e.g. tmux with 'set-clipboard on' copying over SSH. Vt102Emulation decodes the base64 payload and writes it to the system clipboard via QApplication::clipboard(). Clipboard read requests (Pd == '?') are intentionally ignored so a remote host cannot exfiltrate clipboard contents. MAX_TOKEN_LENGTH is raised from 256 to 100000 so large payloads are not truncated. The feature is gated behind a static flag (default on) exposed as the 'clipboardWriteAllowed' property on TerminalDisplay, allowing the embedding application to expose an on/off setting. When disabled, OSC 52 sequences are ignored and the terminal keeps its previous behaviour.
kynrek
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Jul 31, 2026
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This was necessary to be able to copy while using tmux sessions and I though others would benefit from it.
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Summary
Handle the OSC 52 escape sequence (
ESC ] 52 ; Pc ; Pd ST) so remote applications can set the local clipboard — for exampletmuxwithset-clipboard oncopying over SSH.Details
Vt102Emulationdecodes the base64 payload and writes it to the system clipboard viaQApplication::clipboard().Pd == '?') are intentionally ignored so a remote host cannot exfiltrate local clipboard contents.MAX_TOKEN_LENGTHis raised from 256 to 100000 so large clipboard payloads are not truncated (matches xterm's default OSC 52 limit).clipboardWriteAllowedproperty onTerminalDisplay, so an embedding application can offer an on/off setting. When disabled, OSC 52 sequences are ignored and behaviour is unchanged.Testing
Built on macOS (Qt 6) and verified end-to-end: with
set -g set-clipboard onin tmux over SSH, selecting text in copy-mode now populates the local macOS clipboard. Toggling the flag off restores the previous behaviour.A companion PR to cool-retro-term adds a UI checkbox that binds to
clipboardWriteAllowed.