asciinema player

Web player for terminal sessions recorded with asciinema, which you can use on your own website.

Another asciinema-player package?

Yes, We in Cyolo provide full-text search over SSH recordings, in order to support that we had to add additional capabilites.

Version numbers

The npm version we use will correspond to the tag in the original repo, with an additional number corresponding to the patch.

Use the player in your own application bundle

Add @cyolosecurity/asciinema-player to your devDependencies:

npm install --save-dev @cyolosecurity/[email protected]

Add empty <div id="demo"></div> element to your page to contain the player.

Import and use create function from asciinema-player module:

import * as AsciinemaPlayer from '@cyolosecurity/asciinema-player';
AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'));

Finally, include player's CSS file in your site CSS bundle. You'll find it in the npm package at dist/bundle/asciinema-player.css.

About

asciinema player is an open-source terminal session player written in Javascript and Rust. Unlike other video players asciinema player doesn't play heavy-weight video files (.mp4, .webm etc) and instead plays light-weight terminal session files called asciicasts.

Asciicast is a capture of terminal's raw output, which needs to be interpreted during playback, therefore the player comes with its own interpreter based on Paul Williams' parser for ANSI-compatible video terminals. It's fully compatible with most widely used terminal emulators like xterm, Gnome Terminal, iTerm etc.

You can see the player in action on asciinema.org.

If you don't want to depend on asciinema.org and you prefer to host the player and the recordings yourself then read on, it's very simple.

Shout-out to our Platinum sponsors, whose financial support helps keep the project alive:

Basic usage

To mount the player on a page, use the create function exported by the asciinema-player ES module with 2 arguments: source (recording URL) and the container DOM element to mount the player in:

AsciinemaPlayer.create(src, containerElement);

In the most common case, a recording is fetched from a URL and is in asciicast format. You can pass it as full URL, e.g. "https://example.com/demo.cast", or a path, e.g. "/demo.cast".

See Source for more ways of loading a recording into the player.

To pass additional options, when mounting the player, use 3 argument variant:

AsciinemaPlayer.create(src, containerElement, opts);

For example, enable looping and select Solarized Dark theme:

AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'), {
  loop: true,
  theme: 'solarized-dark'
});

See Options for full list of available options.

If you'd like to control the player programmatically, you can use the functions exposed on the object returned from create function:

const player = AsciinemaPlayer.create(src, containerElement);

player.play();

See API for details.

Source

While the easiest way of loading a recording into the player is by using asciicast file URL, it's also easy to customize the loading procedure or even replace it completely.

Inlining a recording

If a recording file is small and you'd rather avoid additional HTTP request, you can inline the recording by using Data URL:

AsciinemaPlayer.create('data:text/plain;base64,' + base64encodedAsciicast, containerElement);

For example:

AsciinemaPlayer.create(
  'data:text/plain;base64,eyJ2ZXJzaW9uIjogMiwgIndpZHRoIjogODAsICJoZWlnaHQiOiAyNH0KWzAuMSwgIm8iLCAiaGVsbCJdClswLjUsICJvIiwgIm8gIl0KWzIuNSwgIm8iLCAid29ybGQhXG5cciJdCg==',
  document.getElementById('demo')
);

Loading a recording from another source

If you'd like to load a recording yourself and just pass it over to the player, use { data: data } object as source argument to create:

AsciinemaPlayer.create({ data: data }, containerElement);

where data can be:

• a string containing asciicast in v1 or v2 format
• an object representing asciicast in v1 format
• an array representing asciicast in v2 format
• a function which when invoked returns one of the above (may be async)

If data is a function, then the player invokes it when playback is started by a user. If preload option is used, the function is invoked during player initialization (mounting in DOM).

Provided data is parsed with built-in asciicast format parser by default (also see Playing other recording formats).

Examples of supported data specifications:

// object representing asciicast in v1 format
{version: 1, width: 80, height: 24, stdout: [[1.0, "hello "], [1.0, "world!"]]};

// string representing asciicast in v1 format (json)
'{"version": 1, "width": 80, "height": 24, "stdout": [[1.0, "hello "], [1.0, "world!"]]}';

// array representing asciicast in v2 format
[
  {version: 2, width: 80, height: 24},
  [1.0, "o", "hello "],
  [2.0, "o", "world!"]
]

// string representing asciicast in v2 format (ndjson)
'{"version": 2, "width": 80, "height": 24}\n[1.0, "o", "hello "]\n[2.0, "o", "world!"]';

// function returning a string representing asciicast in v2 format (ndjson)
() => '{"version": 2, "width": 80, "height": 24}\n[1.0, "o", "hello "]\n[2.0, "o", "world!"]';

Say you'd like to embed asciicast contents in a (hidden) HTML tag on your page, following data source can be used to extract it and pass it to the player:

AsciinemaPlayer.create(
  { data: document.getElementById('asciicast').textContent.trim() },
  document.getElementById('demo')
);

Customizing URL fetching

If you'd like to fetch a recording from a URL, but you need to tweak how HTTP request is performed (configure credentials, change HTTP method, etc), you can do so by using { url: "...", fetchOpts: { ... } } object as the source argument. fetchOpts object is then passed to fetch (as its 2nd argument).

For example:

AsciinemaPlayer.create(
  { url: url, fetchOpts: { method: 'POST' } },
  containerElement
);

Alternatively, you can use custom data source (as described in previous section) and call fetch yourself:

AsciinemaPlayer.create(
  { data: () => fetch(url, { method: 'POST' }) },
  containerElement
);

Playing other recording formats

By default, a recording is parsed with built-in asciicast format parser.

If you have a recording produced by other terminal session recording tool (e.g. script, termrec, ttyrec) you can use one of built-in file format parsers, or implement a custom parser function.

Recording format parser can be specified in the source argument to AsciinemaPlayer.create as a string (built-in) or a function (custom):

AsciinemaPlayer.create({ url: url, parser: parser }, containerElement);

See Parsers for information on available built-in parsers and how to implement a custom one.

Options

The following options can be used to adjust look and feel of the player:

cols

Type: number

Number of columns of player's terminal.

When not set it defaults to 80 (until asciicast gets loaded) and to terminal width saved in the asciicast file (after it gets loaded).

It's recommended to set it to the same value as in asciicast file to avoid player resizing itself from 80x24 to actual dimensions of the recording when it gets loaded.

rows

Type: number

Number of lines of player's terminal.

When not set it defaults to 24 (until asciicast gets loaded) and to terminal height saved in the asciicast file (after it gets loaded).

Same recommendation as for cols applies here.

autoPlay

Type: boolean

Set this option to true if playback should start automatically.

Defaults to false - no auto play.

preload

Type: boolean

Set this option to true if the recording should be preloaded on player's initialization.

Defaults to false - no preload.

loop

Type: boolean or number

Set this option to either true or a number if playback should be looped. When set to a number (e.g. 3) then the recording will be re-played given number of times and stopped after that.

Defaults to false - no looping.

startAt

Type: number or string

Start playback at a given time.

Supported formats:

• 123 (number of seconds)
• "2:03" ("mm:ss")
• "1:02:03" ("hh:mm:ss")

Defaults to 0.

speed

Type: number

Playback speed. The value of 2 means 2x faster.

Defaults to 1 - normal speed.

idleTimeLimit

Type: number

Limit terminal inactivity to a given number of seconds.

For example, when set to 2 any inactivity (pauses) longer than 2 seconds will be "compressed" to 2 seconds.

Defaults to:

• idle_time_limit from asciicast header (saved when passing -i <sec> to asciinema rec),
• no limit, when it was not specified at the time of recording.

theme

Type: string

Terminal color theme.

One of:

• "asciinema"
• "dracula"
• "monokai"
• "nord"
• "solarized-dark"
• "solarized-light"
• "tango"

Defaults to "asciinema".

You can also use a custom theme.

poster

Type: string

Poster (a preview frame) to display until the playback is started.

The following poster specifications are supported:

• npt:1:23 - display recording "frame" at given time using NPT ("Normal Play Time") notation
• data:text/plain,Poster text - print given text

The easiest way of specifying a poster is to use NPT format. For example, npt:1:23 will preload the recording and display terminal contents at 1 min 23 sec.

Example:

AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'), {
  poster: 'npt:1:23'
});

Alternatively, a poster value of data:text/plain,This will be printed as poster\n\rThis in second line will display arbitrary text. All ANSI escape codes can be used to add color and move the cursor around to produce good looking poster.

Example of using custom text poster with control sequences (aka escape codes):

AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'), {
  poster: "data:text/plain,I'm regular \x1b[1;32mI'm bold green\x1b[3BI'm 3 lines down"
});

Defaults to blank terminal or, when startAt is specified, to screen contents at time specified by startAt.

fit

Type: string

Selects fitting (sizing) behaviour with regards to player's container element.

Possible values:

• "width" - scale to full width of the container
• "height" - scale to full height of the container (requires the container element to have fixed height)
• "both" - scale to either full width or height, maximizing usage of available space (requires the container element to have fixed height)
• false / "none" - don't scale, use fixed size font (also see fontSize option below)

Defaults to "width".

Version 2.x of the player supported only the behaviour represented by the false value. If you're upgrading from v2 to v3 and want to preserve the sizing behaviour then include fit: false option.

controls

Type: boolean or "auto"

Hide or show user controls, i.e. bottom control bar.

Valid values:

• true - always show controls
• false - never show controls
• "auto" - show controls on mouse movement, hide on lack of mouse movement

Defaults to "auto".

markers

Type: array

Allows providing a list of timeline markers. See Markers for information on what they're useful for.

Example of unlabeled markers:

AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'), {
  markers: [5.0, 25.0, 66.6, 176.5]  // time in seconds
});

Example of labeled markers:

AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'), {
  markers: [
    [5.0,   "Installation"],  // time in seconds + label
    [25.0,  "Configuration"],
    [66.6,  "Usage"],
    [176.5, "Tips & Tricks"]
  ]
});

Markers set with this option override all markers embedded in asciicast files.

Defaults to markers found in the recording file.

pauseOnMarkers

Type: boolean

If pauseOnMarkers is set to true, the playback automatically pauses on every marker encountered and it can be resumed by either pressing the space bar key or clicking on the play button. The resumed playback continues until the next marker is encountered.

This option can be useful in e.g. live demos: you can add markers to a recording, then play it back during presentation, and have the player stop wherever you want to explain terminal contents in more detail.

Defaults to false.

terminalFontSize

Type: string

Size of the terminal font.

This option is effective only when fit: false option is specified as well (see above).

Possible values:

• any valid CSS font-size value, e.g. "15px"
• "small"
• "medium"
• "big"

Defaults to "small".

terminalFontFamily

Type: string

Terminal font-family override.

Use any valid CSS font-family value, e.g "'JetBrains Mono', Consolas, Menlo, 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono', monospace".

See Fonts for more information on using custom fonts.

terminalLineHeight

Type: number

Terminal line height override.

The value is relative to the font size (like em unit in CSS). For example a value of 1 makes the line height equal to the font size, leaving no space between lines. A value of 2 makes it double the font size, etc.

Defaults to 1.33333333.

logger

Type: console-like object

Set this option to console ({ logger: console }) or any object implementing console API (.log(), .debug(), .info(), .warn(), .error() methods) to enable logging. Useful during development or when debugging player issues.

API

import * as AsciinemaPlayer from 'asciinema-player';
// skip the above import when using standalone player bundle

const player = AsciinemaPlayer.create(url, containerElement);

The object returned by create function (saved as player const above) contains several functions that can be used to control the player from your code.

For example, initiate playback and print the length of the recording when it starts:

player.play().then(() => {
  console.log(`started! duration: ${player.getDuration()}`);
});

The following functions are available on the player object:

getCurrentTime()

Returns the current playback time in seconds.

player.getCurrentTime(); // => 1.23

getDuration()

Returns the length of the recording in seconds, or null if the recording is not loaded yet.

player.getDuration(); // => 123.45

play()

Initiates playback of the recording. If the recording hasn't been preloaded then it's loaded, and playback is started.

player.play();

This function returns a promise which is fulfilled when the playback actually starts.

player.play().then(() => {
  console.log(`started! duration: ${player.getDuration()}`);
});

If you want to synchronize asciinema player with other elements on the page (for example <audio> element) then you can use this promise for coordination. Alternatively you can add event listener for play/playing events (see below).

pause()

Pauses playback.

player.pause();

The playback is paused immediately.

seek(location)

Changes the playback location to specified time or marker.

location argument can be:

• time in seconds, as number, e.g. 15
• position in percentage, as string, e.g '50%'
• specific marker by its 0-based index, as { marker: i } object, e.g. { marker: 3 }
• previous marker, as { marker: 'prev' } object,
• next marker, as { marker: 'next' } object.

This function returns a promise which is fulfilled when the location actually changes.

player.seek(15).then(() => {
  console.log(`current time: ${player.getCurrentTime()}`);
});

addEventListener(eventName, handler)

Adds event listener, binding handler's this to the player object.

play event

play event is dispatched when playback is initiated, either by clicking play button or calling player.play() method, but not yet started.

player.addEventListener('play', () => {
  console.log('play!');
})

playing event

playing event is dispatched when playback actually starts or resumes from pause.

player.addEventListener('playing', () => {
  console.log(`playing! we're at: ${this.getCurrentTime()}`);
})

pause event

pause event is dispatched when playback is paused.

player.addEventListener('pause', () => {
  console.log("paused!");
})

ended event

ended event is dispatched when playback stops after reaching the end of the recording.

player.addEventListener('ended', () => {
  console.log("ended!");
})

input event

input event is dispatched for every keyboard input that was recorded.

Callback's 1st argument is an object with data field, which contains registered input value. Usually this is ASCII character representing a key, but may be a control character, like "\r" (enter), "\u0001" (ctrl-a), "\u0003" (ctrl-c), etc. See input events in asciicast file format for more information.

This event can be used to play keyboard typing sound or display key presses on the screen amongst other use cases.

player.addEventListener('input', ({data}) => {
  console.log('input!', JSON.stringify(data));
})

inputOffset source option can be used to shift fired input events in time, e.g. when you need them to fire earlier due to audio latency etc:

const player = AsciinemaPlayer.create({
  url: '/demo.cast',
  inputOffset: -1.0
}, document.getElementById('demo'));

player.addEventListener('input', ({data}) => {
  // this is now fired 1 sec ahead of original key press time
  playSound(data);
})

Note: input events are dispatched only for asciicasts recorded with --stdin option, e.g. asciinema rec --stdin demo.cast.

marker event

marker event is dispatched for every marker encountered during playback.

Callback's 1st argument is an object with index, time and label fields, which represent marker's index (0-based), time and label respectively.

The following example shows how to implement looping over a section of a recording with combination of marker event and seek method:

player.addEventListener('marker', ({ index, time, label }) => {
  console.log(`marker! ${index} - ${time} - ${label}`);

  if (index == 3) {
    player.seek({ marker: 2 });
  }
})

dispose()

Use this function to dispose of the player, i.e. to shut it down, release all resources and remove it from DOM.

Fonts

By default the player uses a web safe, platform specific monospace font via font-family value like this: "Consolas, Menlo, 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono', monospace".

You can use any custom monospace font with the player by adding @font-face definitions in CSS and calling AsciinemaPlayer.create with terminalFontFamily option. Regular font face is necessary, bold (weight 700) is recommended, italic is optional (italics are rarely used in terminal).

If you use icons or other symbols in your shell you may want to use one of Nerd Fonts.

For example to use Fira Code Nerd Font try this:

/* app.css */

@font-face {
    font-family: "FiraCode Nerd Font";
    src:    local(Fira Code Bold Nerd Font Complete Mono),
            url("/fonts/Fira Code Bold Nerd Font Complete Mono.ttf") format("truetype");
    font-stretch: normal;
    font-style: normal;
    font-weight: 700;
}

@font-face {
    font-family: "FiraCode Nerd Font";
    src:    local(Fira Code Regular Nerd Font Complete Mono),
            url("/fonts/Fira Code Regular Nerd Font Complete Mono.ttf") format("truetype");
    font-stretch: normal;
}

// app.js

AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'), {
  terminalFontFamily: "'FiraCode Nerd Font', monospace"
});

Note that the player performs measurement of font metrics (width/height) when it mounts on the page, therefore it's highly recommended to ensure chosen font is already loaded before calling create. This can be achieved by using CSS Font Loading API:

document.fonts.load("1em FiraCode Nerd Font").then(() => {
  AsciinemaPlayer.create('/demo.cast', document.getElementById('demo'), {
    terminalFontFamily: "'FiraCode Nerd Font', monospace"
  });
}

Markers

Markers are specific points in recording's timeline, which can be used for navigation within the recording or automation of the player.

There are several ways of specifying markers for use in the player:

• using markers option with AsciinemaPlayer.create,
• embedding markers in the recording - see asciinema recorder doc on markers.

See also marker event.

Keyboard shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts are currently available (when the player element is focused):

• space - play / pause
• f - toggle fullscreen mode
• ← / → - rewind by 5 seconds / fast-forward by 5 seconds
• Shift + ← / Shift + → - rewind by 10% / fast-forward by 10%
• [ - rewind to the previous marker
• ] - fast-forward to the next marker
• 0, 1, 2 ... 9 - jump to 0%, 10%, 20% ... 90%
• . - step through a recording a frame at a time (when paused)

Development

The project requires Node.js, npm and Rust for development and build related tasks so make sure you have the latest versions installed.

To build the project:

git clone https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema-player
cd asciinema-player
git submodule update --init
rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
npm install
npm run build
npm run bundle

This produces:

• dist/index.js - ES module, to be import-ed in your JS bundle
• dist/bundle/asciinema-player.js - standalone player script, to be linked directly from a website
• dist/bundle/asciinema-player.min.js - minimized version of the above
• dist/bundle/asciinema-player.css - stylesheet, to be linked directly from a website or included in a CSS bundle

Sponsors

asciinema is sponsored by:

• Dashcam
• Brightbox

Consulting

I offer consulting services for asciinema project. See https://asciinema.org/consulting for more information.

Contributing

If you want to contribute to this project check out Contributing page.

Authors

Developed with passion by Marcin Kulik and great open source contributors.

License

© 2011 Marcin Kulik.

All code is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE file for details.