feat(selection): Add triple-click and selection improvements by 0xBigBoss · Pull Request #115 · coder/ghostty-web

0xBigBoss · 2026-01-09T20:14:45Z

Summary

This PR adds comprehensive selection improvements to ghostty-web:

Triple-click line selection: Select entire lines with triple-click, matching native terminal behavior
Browser-native click detection: Use event.detail for reliable double/triple-click detection instead of custom timing logic
Path-friendly word selection: Expand word characters to include /, ., -, _, ~ for selecting file paths (matching native Ghostty)
Smart line selection: Triple-click selects actual text content, not full terminal width
Scrollback support: Line selection works correctly in scrollback buffer
Single-cell handling: Properly handle edge cases with single-cell and single-character selections
Semi-transparent overlay: Use VS Code-style semi-transparent selection overlay instead of inverted colors

Test plan

All existing tests pass (328 tests)
Manual: Double-click selects words including paths like /usr/local/bin
Manual: Triple-click selects the line content (not trailing whitespace)
Manual: Triple-click in scrollback buffer works correctly
Manual: Selection overlay is semi-transparent blue (not inverted)
Manual: Single-cell clicks don't leave stray highlights

0xBigBoss · 2026-01-09T20:24:37Z

Additional changes for discussion

We have a few more changes in our fork that enable VS Code webview integration. These are potentially VS Code-specific, so I wanted to gauge interest before submitting a separate PR.

Compare: main...0xBigBoss:ghostty-web:feat/integration-hooks

Changes included:

onLinkClick callback - Allows the host to handle link clicks (e.g., open in external browser from VS Code webview)
Three-way return semantics for customKeyEventHandler
- Current: true = terminal handles, falsy = default processing
- Proposed: true = terminal handles, false = bubble to host, undefined = default processing
- Use case: VS Code needs certain key combos (Cmd+P, Cmd+Shift+P) to bubble up to the host instead of being processed by the terminal
Let Cmd/Meta combos bubble to host - On macOS, Meta+key combos return early so VS Code can handle them (Quick Open, Command Palette, etc.)

Would these be useful upstream, or are they too VS Code-specific? Happy to submit a separate PR if there's interest.

sreya · 2026-01-13T00:31:25Z

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-01-13T00:37:00Z

lib/selection-manager.ts

+        ) {
+          // Clear same-cell selection from click-without-drag
+          this.selectionStart = null;
+          this.selectionEnd = null;
+          return;


Mark dirty rows when clearing same-cell selection

Clearing a click-without-drag selection here bypasses clearSelection(), so no dirty rows are recorded. Because hasSelection() now returns true for same-cell selections, a render can paint the highlight between mousedown and mouseup; after you null out the selection and return, the renderer has no reason to redraw that row, so the highlight can stick until some unrelated redraw (cursor blink/move, new text). Consider calling clearSelection() or at least markCurrentSelectionDirty() before nulling out the selection so the row is repainted.

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@0xBigBoss I noticed this as well while trying out your changes

Block cursors now re-draw the character underneath using the cursorAccent theme color, making text visible on the opaque cursor. Uses ctx.clip() to prevent wide characters from bleeding outside the cursor cell. Co-authored-by: Nathan Cooper <ncoop57@users.noreply.github.com>

… selection, and click handling - Add triple-click to select entire line (text content only, not full width) - Use event.detail for reliable double/triple-click detection - Expand word characters to include path separators like native Ghostty - Use scrollback-aware line retrieval in triple-click - Handle single-cell and single-character selections properly - Clear same-cell selection on mouseup via clearSelection() for proper dirty-row tracking - Add comprehensive tests for new selection features

- Clear selection when user types by calling clearSelection() before firing the data event in the input callback (terminal.ts) - Add tests for scrollback line content accuracy - Add test for selection clearing on input - Add test for triple-click scrollback line verification

- selectLines(): use viewportRowToAbsolute() instead of incorrect viewportY + row formula - getWordAtCell(): convert viewport row to absolute row and use getScrollbackLine() when in scrollback region

On mousedown, only set selectionStart without selectionEnd. This prevents the renderer from highlighting the clicked cell before any drag occurs. On mouseup, check for null selectionEnd (no drag) instead of comparing start==end coordinates. This also enables single-character selection by dragging to the same cell, which previously looked like click-without-drag.

…e-char selection

…hold Replace dragMovedToNewCell flag with a 5px pixel-distance threshold for selection drag detection. This prevents jitter from creating accidental selections while allowing precise single-char selection via intentional drag. - Track mousedown pixel position (mouseDownX/mouseDownY) - Only begin selection once mouse moves ≥5px from mousedown - Use squared distance comparison (no sqrt needed) - Clear selection on mouseup if threshold was never met

sreya · 2026-02-24T02:22:01Z

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-02-24T02:27:26Z

lib/selection-manager.ts

+        if (!this.selectionEnd || !this.dragThresholdMet) {
+          this.clearSelection();


Preserve drag selections when pointer leaves canvas early

This mouseup guard clears the selection whenever dragThresholdMet is false, but that flag is only set in the canvas mousemove handler; if the user drags quickly outside the canvas, the document-level mousemove path can update selectionEnd while dragThresholdMet stays false, so the completed drag is discarded on mouseup. In practice this breaks edge/outside drags (including auto-scroll selection) for fast pointer movement.

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…arding fast edge drags

sreya · 2026-02-24T02:35:18Z

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-02-24T02:41:58Z

lib/renderer.ts

    // Set CSS size (what user sees)
    this.canvas.style.width = `${cssWidth}px`;
    this.canvas.style.height = `${cssHeight}px`;
+    this.canvas.style.cursor = 'text';


Do not force text cursor on the canvas element

Setting the canvas cursor directly to text overrides the inherited cursor from the terminal container, so the link-hover cursor updates in Terminal.handleMouseMove (this.element.style.cursor = link ? 'pointer' : 'text') are no longer visible over the canvas. In practice this regresses hyperlink affordance: links still work, but users no longer get the pointer feedback when hovering them.

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-02-24T02:41:58Z

lib/selection-manager.ts

        const absoluteRow = this.viewportRowToAbsolute(cell.row);
        this.selectionStart = { col: cell.col, absoluteRow };
-        this.selectionEnd = { col: cell.col, absoluteRow };
+        this.selectionEnd = null; // Don't highlight until drag


Keep an initial selection end for edge-drag autoscroll

Initializing selectionEnd to null on mousedown breaks a real drag path: if the pointer leaves the canvas before an in-canvas move updates selectionEnd, document mousemove can enter auto-scroll mode and skip end updates while scrolling, and the auto-scroll extension path only runs when selectionEnd is already set. Mouseup then treats the action as a click and clears it, so fast edge drags (especially from top/bottom rows) can lose the selection entirely.

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… for edge drag support - Set canvas cursor to 'text' at creation, but update to 'pointer' on link hover (both canvas and container) so hyperlink affordance works - Removed redundant cursor set from renderer.resize() - Restored selectionEnd = start on mousedown so auto-scroll/edge drag works - hasSelection() returns false while isSelecting && !dragThresholdMet to prevent flash-highlight on click

sreya · 2026-02-24T02:47:36Z

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-02-24T02:55:01Z

Codex Review: Didn't find any major issues. 🚀

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sreya and others added 2 commits February 24, 2026 01:22

sreya force-pushed the feat/selection-improvements branch from 6ad518e to 268dd2b Compare February 24, 2026 01:22

sreya added 10 commits February 24, 2026 01:42

fix: make selectLines() and getWordAtCell() scrollback-aware

0a3a668

- selectLines(): use viewportRowToAbsolute() instead of incorrect viewportY + row formula - getWordAtCell(): convert viewport row to absolute row and use getScrollbackLine() when in scrollback region

fix: set text cursor on terminal canvas element

60cd5d9

fix: set text cursor on canvas at creation time in terminal.ts

fa61c4d

fix: clear single-cell selection caused by sub-cell mouse jitter

3c6ec0c

fix: track drag movement to distinguish jitter from intentional singl…

3746232

…e-char selection

fix: use 50% cell width as drag threshold to scale with font size

9372d9e

fix: remove colon from word selection characters

a3fb59a

chatgpt-codex-connector bot reviewed Feb 24, 2026

View reviewed changes

fix: apply drag threshold in document-level mousemove to prevent disc…

bf1a07f

…arding fast edge drags

chatgpt-codex-connector bot reviewed Feb 24, 2026

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sreya merged commit 6a1a50d into coder:main Feb 24, 2026
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		if (!this.selectionEnd \|\| !this.dragThresholdMet) {
		this.clearSelection();

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0xBigBoss commented Jan 9, 2026

Summary

Test plan

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0xBigBoss commented Jan 9, 2026

Additional changes for discussion

Changes included:

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