Only underline hyperlinks on hover #11244

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opened 2026-01-31 02:42:24 +00:00 by claunia · 0 comments
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Originally created by @j4james on GitHub (Nov 1, 2020).

Originally assigned to: @DHowett on GitHub.

Description of the new feature/enhancement

I can understand that some people will feel differently about this, but could we at least have an option to underline the hyperlinks only when the mouse is hovered over them, instead of showing the underline all the time?

On explicit hyperlinks (via OSC 8) I feel it should really be up to the app generating the link to choose how it wants that rendered. For example, you might be trying to make a link look like a button, but then we add dashed underlines everywhere which totally mess up the effect.

In the case of the autodetected hyperlinks, it's already obvious when something is a link. And the annoying thing is the underline doesn't track very well when you scroll, so ends up lingering on areas of the page that don't even have a link. I don't know if that's something we can fix, but either way I'd rather it just didn't underline at all until you hovered.

And as a point of comparison, every terminal I've tried so far that autodetects links does so my showing the underline only when you hover over the link. This includes Gnome Terminal, Konsole, Alacritty, Kitty, Terminator, and Mintty - the latter only showing the underline when you're pressing Ctrl at the same time.

For OSC 8 links, Gnome Terminal displays a dotted underline without having to hover, but it's at least more subtle than our dashed underline. Mintty again only shows an underline when actually hovering over the link with the Ctrl key pressed.

Originally created by @j4james on GitHub (Nov 1, 2020). Originally assigned to: @DHowett on GitHub. # Description of the new feature/enhancement I can understand that some people will feel differently about this, but could we at least have an option to underline the hyperlinks only when the mouse is hovered over them, instead of showing the underline all the time? On explicit hyperlinks (via `OSC 8`) I feel it should really be up to the app generating the link to choose how it wants that rendered. For example, you might be trying to make a link look like a button, but then we add dashed underlines everywhere which totally mess up the effect. In the case of the autodetected hyperlinks, it's already obvious when something is a link. And the annoying thing is the underline doesn't track very well when you scroll, so ends up lingering on areas of the page that don't even have a link. I don't know if that's something we can fix, but either way I'd rather it just didn't underline at all until you hovered. And as a point of comparison, every terminal I've tried so far that autodetects links does so my showing the underline only when you hover over the link. This includes Gnome Terminal, Konsole, Alacritty, Kitty, Terminator, and Mintty - the latter only showing the underline when you're pressing `Ctrl` at the same time. For `OSC 8` links, Gnome Terminal displays a dotted underline without having to hover, but it's at least more subtle than our dashed underline. Mintty again only shows an underline when actually hovering over the link with the `Ctrl` key pressed.
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Reference: starred/terminal#11244