What's new in Termphin 1.8.0
Split screen, and a connection that copes much better with slow links, dropped signal and switching networks.
This release is about two things: working in two sessions at once, and a connection that gets out of your way when the network is bad.
Split screen
Two sessions can now share one tab. Make a split from the tab’s menu, and undo it the same way.
The panes are stacked when the phone is upright and side by side when it is turned. To swap them, hold a pane’s name bar and drag it onto the other one. When the keyboard comes up, the pane you are not typing in folds down to its name bar, so the one you are using gets the room.
A better connection
Typing feels instant on slow links. When the server is slow to answer, the characters you type are drawn straight away instead of seconds later. On a very slow link they are shown dimmed until the server confirms them. It only kicks in when the link is slow, it stays out of full-screen programs like vim and htop, and a password typed after sudo is never shown.
You can see when the link is slow. A small warning appears over the corner of the terminal when replies take too long, or stop coming. It only appears when something is wrong. Tap it to open the connection log.
Reconnecting no longer wipes the screen. When the connection drops, the terminal stays exactly as it was while the app reconnects. Anything you type in the meantime is kept and sent once the session is back.
Reconnects are faster, and they do not give up. The app notices when the phone switches networks, for example from WiFi to mobile data, and reconnects straight away instead of waiting for the old connection to time out. It keeps trying until the server is back. Only a problem no retry can fix, like a wrong password, stops it.
Coming back is quicker with Termphin Agent. If your shell runs under the agent on a Unix server, a reconnect now fetches only the output you missed, not the whole history.
Also fixed: reattaching a session you had detached on purpose could show a blank terminal.