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ClubhouseMerged

BRB. Enjoy the view.

Animated scenery has merged for Zen and your away screen: four landscapes, two styles, and Earthrise for your next coffee break.

By Mike Clark2 min read

A pixelated blue-and-white Earth above a grey, cratered landscape against a starry black sky.
Earthrise above a rocky lunar landscape, in terminal pixels. Screenshot: Mike Clark.

Your terminal is getting a better view. PR #687 merged on October 9, adding an ASCII tile in Zen and a full-screen away screensaver. Follow-up PR #689 has since added Earthrise.

There are now four scenes: Earthrise, misty forest, aurora fjord, and alpine dawn. Each comes in delicate braille dots or colourful half-block pixels: eight choices in all. Think a turning Earth above the Moon, fog and sunbeams through pines, northern lights over a cabin, or first light on snowy peaks.

Sunlight above a misty forest, with dark pine trees and layers of green fog rendered in terminal pixels.
Misty forest. Screenshot: Mike Clark.

In Zen, press Space on the focused tile and choose ascii. Use [ / ] to cycle the scenes and styles, or Enter to open the piece picker. Your choice stays with the layout. Lowercase z now zooms the tile to fill the whole screen, without borders or a status row; press it again to return. Uppercase F flips the parent split. Zen controls and the zoom update

Green and purple northern lights over snowy mountains and a red cabin, reflected in the fjord below, rendered in terminal pixels.
Aurora fjord. Screenshot: Mike Clark.

Step away with /brb, or leave the session without input from a person for 30 minutes, and the screensaver covers the whole terminal. The default is now Earthrise in dots; an explicitly saved choice stays put. Open Settings → Tweaks → Screensaver to choose another view or turn it off. Earthrise advances every four seconds, while the forest updates once a second with slowly moving sunbeams; aurora fjord and alpine dawn are livelier. Screensaver defaults and animation details

Golden alpine peaks and a low sun beneath a purple sky, mirrored in still water, rendered in terminal pixels.
Alpine dawn. Screenshot: Mike Clark.

Coming back is considerate, too: the first key dismisses the screensaver without reaching the page or game underneath. Simply moving the pointer or changing terminal focus neither wakes it nor resets the away timer. Wake-up behavior

Updated October 9 after PRs #687 and #689 merged: Earthrise brings the total to eight choices. The plasma, lava lamp, and donut pieces mentioned in our earlier teaser were dropped.

A little more atmosphere for the clubhouse. Even when you've popped out for coffee.

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