This entire tree is "some highly unsupported crackrock", though we are cleaning it as fast as possible and aiming for a 1.0 release "next year". Please contact people listed in filed MAINTAINERS if you intend to hack on it, especially if you want to commit stuff. Vte is different from other terminal emulators in that instead of hard coding behavior of a few select terminals, it can emulate any terminal simply by reading its terminfo capabilities file. The idea being that if applications can communicate with any terminal by reading its capabilities, the emulation widget can also behave like any terminal by reading that file. Well, that's just the idea :). This is the most useful resource in understanding various internal states as well as control sequences: http://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html And to understand termcap, terminfo, etc, "make terminfo" is a great start.