Reusable App Shell

RoyalApps.RoyalTerminal.Avalonia.App packages the product-style terminal shell that used to live directly in samples/RoyalTerminal.Demo.

Use this package when you want a ready-to-run terminal application surface rather than assembling TerminalControl, profiles, settings, native menus, capture, replay, command history, split panes, and titlebar chrome yourself.

Dedicated API Guides

The shell package is split across focused public surfaces:

Topic	Article
Window/view hosting, required resources, and executable boundaries	App Shell Hosting
MainWindowViewModel commands, interactions, and option records	App Shell Command Surface
macOS application menu and native menu binding	Native Menu Integration
Reusable settings controls and state objects	Settings Panel API
Control-package pane layout helpers	Terminal Pane Layout API
App-owned split permission and clone policy	Pane Split Policy

What It Provides

• MainWindow, a reusable terminal window with native menu declarations, key bindings, extended titlebar chrome, and platform window settings.
• MainView, the reusable terminal shell view containing the titlebar command surface, tab strip, left rail, terminal host, settings overlay, diagnostics, replay controls, and fallback NativeMenuBar.
• MainWindowViewModel, command state, settings state, shell visibility state, capture/replay state, and ReactiveUI interactions.
• Shell services for startup mode selection, profile/theme catalogs, SSH trust prompts, native application menu binding, and runtime controller orchestration.
• Shared resource dictionaries for the RoyalTerminal app palette, titlebar, tabs, scroll buttons, search panel, settings overlay, status bar, and replay UI.

The package intentionally does not provide an Avalonia Application class or own the desktop/theme bootstrap. The executable host owns Avalonia.Desktop, Avalonia.Themes.Fluent, FluentTheme, platform options, and root-window creation.

Minimal Desktop Host

The demo executable configures Avalonia and launches its own App class:

using Avalonia;
using ReactiveUI.Avalonia;

public static AppBuilder BuildAvaloniaApp()
    => AppBuilder.Configure<App>()
        .UsePlatformDetect()
        .With(new MacOSPlatformOptions
        {
            DisableDefaultApplicationMenuItems = true,
        })
        .UseReactiveUI(_ => { })
        .WithInterFont()
        .LogToTrace();

Keep DisableDefaultApplicationMenuItems enabled on macOS. The host App.axaml declares the RoyalTerminal application menu, and ApplicationNativeMenuFactory binds it to the shared MainWindowViewModel so Avalonia's default About Avalonia item is not installed.

Custom Application Hosts

Applications that need their own Application class can still reference the package and merge the shared resources:

<Application.Styles>
  <FluentTheme />
  <StyleInclude Source="avares://RoyalTerminal.Avalonia.Settings/Settings/TerminalSettingsPanel.axaml" />
  <StyleInclude Source="avares://RoyalTerminal.Avalonia.App/Styles/Tabs.axaml" />
</Application.Styles>

<Application.Resources>
  <ResourceDictionary>
    <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
      <ResourceInclude Source="avares://RoyalTerminal.Avalonia.App/Styles/Theme.axaml" />
    </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
  </ResourceDictionary>
</Application.Resources>

Then create RoyalTerminal.Avalonia.App.MainWindow from your desktop lifetime. The window owns the top-level shortcuts and native window menu; MainView owns the reusable visual shell.

Custom application classes can use ApplicationNativeMenuFactory.CreateShell() and ApplicationNativeMenuFactory.Bind(...) to install the same macOS application menu used by the demo host.

Shell Boundaries

The split is intentional:

• MainWindow owns top-level behavior: window metadata, extended titlebar settings, key bindings, and native menus.
• MainView owns visual composition and named terminal UI parts.
• MainWindowController bridges the top-level window to the view, storage provider, dialogs, transport startup, workspace restore, tabs, panes, capture, replay, and runtime diagnostics.
• samples/RoyalTerminal.Demo remains useful as the executable launcher, but it no longer owns the product shell implementation.