GhosttyWin32

Windows host application for Ghostty terminal emulator.

Uses the libghostty C API (DLL) with a Win32 window. Supports DirectX 11 (default) and OpenGL (via Mesa Zink) rendering backends.

Features

Terminal

• Full terminal emulation via libghostty (VT parser, ConPTY)
• PowerShell / cmd.exe / custom shell (command config)
• Japanese/CJK font rendering with system font fallback
• IME input (Japanese, Chinese, Korean)
• UTF-16 surrogate pair support (emoji)

Input

• Keyboard: WM_CHAR text input + WM_KEYDOWN special keys
• Modifier keys: Ctrl, Shift, Alt (sent to ghostty for keybindings)
• Mouse: left/middle/right click, drag, scroll wheel
• Text selection: left-click drag, Ctrl+C copy, Ctrl+V paste, right-click copy
• Selection auto-clear after copy
• Ctrl+click: URL highlight detection

Window Management

• Fullscreen toggle (Ctrl+Enter)
• Maximize/restore
• Window decorations toggle (title bar show/hide)
• Borderless mode with drag (top 30px) and edge resize (WM_NCHITTEST)
• Minimum/maximum window size limits (SIZE_LIMIT)
• DPI scaling (Per-Monitor DPI Aware V2)

Visual

• Theme support (config file or %LOCALAPPDATA%\ghostty\themes\)
• Background image (background-image config)
• Background opacity (background-opacity config)
• Title bar color synced with terminal background (DwmSetWindowAttribute, Windows 11)
• Custom color palette (ANSI 16 colors)
• Cursor color customization

Rendering

• DirectX 11 (default) — native D3D11, no external dependencies, FLIP_DISCARD swap chain
• OpenGL 4.3+ (fallback) — via Mesa Zink (GL-to-Vulkan translation)
• High-resolution waitable timer for frame pacing (Windows 10 1803+)
• V-Sync OFF for low input latency

Callbacks

• SET_TITLE: window title from terminal
• MOUSE_SHAPE: cursor changes (text, pointer, hand, resize, etc.)
• MOUSE_VISIBILITY: hide/show cursor
• OPEN_URL: open URLs in default browser (ShellExecuteW)
• RING_BELL: flash window + system beep
• COLOR_CHANGE: sync title bar color with background
• TOGGLE_FULLSCREEN / TOGGLE_MAXIMIZE / TOGGLE_WINDOW_DECORATIONS
• SIZE_LIMIT / INITIAL_SIZE / RESET_WINDOW_SIZE
• QUIT: clean shutdown
• Clipboard read/write (onReadClipboard, onWriteClipboard)
• Wakeup: thread-safe PostMessage to main thread

Architecture

GhosttyWin32.exe (C++/Win32)
  └── GhosttyBridge (singleton)
      ├── Win32 window (WS_POPUP or WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW)
      ├── Input handling (keyboard, mouse, IME)
      ├── Clipboard (Win32 API)
      ├── Config reading (ghostty_config_get API)
      ├── Action dispatch (onAction callback)
      └── 4MB stack threads (ghostty_init, config, surface)

ghostty.dll (Zig, from i999rri/ghostty windows-port branch)
  ├── Terminal emulator core (VT parser, Screen)
  ├── DirectX 11 renderer (HLSL SM5.0 shaders, d3d11_impl.c COM wrapper)
  ├── OpenGL 4.3 renderer (GLSL 430 shaders, Mesa Zink fallback)
  ├── Font rendering (Freetype + Harfbuzz)
  ├── ConPTY subprocess management
  └── Windows font discovery (registry lookup, %WINDIR%\Fonts)

[Optional] Mesa Zink (opengl32.dll + libgallium_wgl.dll)
  └── Translates OpenGL 4.6 → Vulkan (only needed for OpenGL fallback)

Install

Scoop (Recommended)

scoop bucket add ghostty https://github.com/i999rri/scoop-bucket
scoop install ghosttywin32

Then run from terminal or start menu:

GhosttyWin32

Manual

Download the latest ZIP from Releases, extract, and run GhosttyWin32.exe.

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2022+ with C++ desktop development workload
• Zig 0.15.2+
• Windows SDK

Build ghostty.dll

This requires a forked version of Ghostty with Windows support patches:

git clone https://github.com/i999rri/ghostty.git
cd ghostty
git switch windows-port
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe -Drenderer=directx

Copy the following files to GhosttyWin32/ghostty/:

• zig-out/lib/ghostty.dll
• .zig-cache/o/<hash>/ghostty.lib (small import library ~60KB)
• include/ghostty.h (already included in this repo)

Build GhosttyWin32

Open GhosttyWin32.slnx in Visual Studio, set to Release | x64, and build.

Mesa Zink Setup (Optional, for OpenGL fallback)

Only needed if using the OpenGL renderer instead of DirectX.

Download mesa-dist-win (MSVC release) and copy to the exe directory:

• x64/opengl32.dll
• x64/libgallium_wgl.dll

Run

GhosttyWin32.exe

Renderer Selection

DirectX 11 is the default renderer. To use OpenGL instead:

$env:GHOSTTY_RENDERER = "opengl"
$env:GALLIUM_DRIVER = "zink"
GhosttyWin32.exe

Environment Variable	Default	Description
GHOSTTY_RENDERER	(DirectX)	Set to opengl for OpenGL/Zink fallback
GALLIUM_DRIVER	—	Set to zink when using OpenGL renderer

Configuration

Create %LOCALAPPDATA%\ghostty\config:

font-size=15
command=powershell
confirm-close-surface=false
theme=catppuccin-mocha
window-decoration=false
background-opacity=0.85
background-image=C:/Users/you/path/to/image.png
background-image-opacity=0.3
background-image-fit=cover

Theme files go in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ghostty\themes\. See Ghostty documentation for all options.

Known Issues

• exit does not close window (#8)
• Ctrl+click URL causes process exit (#12) — ghostty-side issue
• Mesa Zink DLLs trigger Windows Defender false positive (#11)
• OpenGL renderer: native WGL (without Mesa Zink) has flickering due to WGL+DWM issue

Status

This is an experimental Windows port. See the windows-port branch for Ghostty-side changes and Discussion #2563 for context.

AI Disclosure

Claude Code was used to assist with development.