Display graphical images in terminal

[JekRock]

Description of the new feature/enhancement

It would be nice to have the ability to display graphical images in the terminal by using the API provided by the Windows Terminal. Maybe something similar to https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/icat.html or https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-images.html

[zadjii-msft]

So we've already got #448 for display images with sixel graphics, though maybe this issue would make sense to leave open for supporting other binary image formats in the Terminal. Especially for something like gifs, which I don't think sixel is necessarily well suited for.

[DHowett-MSFT]

I'm taking triage off this. It needs a spec, and we need to make sure that we follow the prevailing standards if we're ever going to do this.

[DHowett-MSFT]

Comments from #4544.

from @zyy1998

Display images in terminal

I'm trying to use WSL to substitute some functions on windows, it performed well in some text-only functions. But I'm also want to use ranger ( a linux terminal file explorer ) to replace totalcommander which I often used or even windows file explorer, ranger satisfies my content in many occasions but for image preview.

w3m is a terminal web browser that could be used to display images in terminal, and it can also be used by ranger. However, w3m didn't work on this terminal.

There are many other terminals like iTerm2、urxvt and alacritty could display images. As a terminal under windows, I think it's more necessary to support this feature.

Proposed technical implementation details

I don't know how does w3m works, but I have noticed that the terminal could be changed the background pictures, so if you want to render some images, you can just change the specific area of the background of the terminal. Actually it's how urxvt handled it.

Of course, you don't have to support w3m, just do something that could display images correctly and the method could be called by other apps like ranger, that's all what I need.

Thanks! ( And pardon for my poor English😁 )

You can find more information here: https://github.com/ranger/ranger/wiki/Image-Previews

from @akho

w3m and überzug both rely on x11 to draw an image in a subwindow. It is highly unlikely that either of the two can be made to work in Terminal without also modifying the tools themselves.

Having some way to draw images in terminal would be very nice though. Kitty, for example, implements its own thing (icat), and integrates well with ranger. Would be lovely to have that in Terminal.

Sixel or whatever iTerm2 does are also nice, I think Sixel support is in the pipeline? Not supported by ranger yet, though.

[remkop]

This discussion between the authors of various terminal emulators may be relevant: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/terminal-wg/specifications/issues/12

It looks like MinTTY went ahead and implemented iTerm2 escape sequences so perhaps this is worth considering as a de facto standard.

[egmontkob]

See also https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/terminal-wg/specifications/-/issues/26.