The New Hyper 2.0 and the Hyper Store

We are pleased to announce Hyper 2, featuring:
  • A new high-performance Canvas based rendering engine
  • An online catalog of plugins and themes
  • The hyper CLI to install plugins and themes with one command
  • Improved keymaps support
  • Improved support for hyperlinks
Download it now or keep reading to find out what's new.

High Performance Rendering

Hyper 2.0 has an upgraded rendering engine: xterm.js 3.0. This marks the transition from the DOM to a 2D Canvas.
Previously Hyper was powered by hterm, a sub-project of Chromium. Both hterm and xterm 2.0 used the DOM as the target rendering surface, which introduced some important bottlenecks.
Most notably, Hyper would have trouble keeping up with lots of output. Thanks to the great improvements made to xterm (as part of the VS Code project, in which it's also included), this is no longer an issue:

Can Hyper now seamlessly handle lots of streaming output? `yes`!

And for a less scientific test:

Using the `hyper-broadcast` plugin, we synchronize `parrot.live` 🔴

The Hyper Store

We have open sourced our new website, built on Next.js, featuring a catalog of plugins and themes from the community.

The Hyper Store gathers the best plugins and themes from npm

Simple Plugin and Theme Installation

One of Hypers best features is its configuration system. To customize, share or back up your config, you just need one file: ~/.hyper.js.
We've now made it even easier to install a plugin or theme from npm, by bundling the hyper CLI.
hyper i hyperpower

An example of installing the `hyperpower` plugin

Improved Keymaps Support

We have improved the keymaps config so that you can map multiple keyboard shortcuts for each action
{
  'tab:new': ['command+t'],
  'tab:jump:prefix': ['command]'],
  ...
}

The improved `keymaps` object

Improved Support for Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are now automatically handled, no plugin required. Just hover over them and click, like regular hyperlinks!

A simple microservice deployed with `now`, one click away

Future

We are excited about how far Hyper has come. From a small proof of concept, to a tool being used and relied upon by tens of thousands of developers worldwide.
This release wouldn't have been possible without the support of our amazing community. Please join us on Spectrum to ask any questions, get plugin ideas or show off your customizations!
Our focus moving forward will be twofold:
  • Make Hyper the most performant and versatile cross-platform terminal out there. We are excited to begin experimenting with WebGL and WebAssembly to push the boundaries of web-based applications.
  • Provide the necessary hooks to make the most creative terminal extensions. As we've shared before, we believe that command-based UI is uniquely productive, can be user-friendly and has an incredibly bright future ahead.