For a while now, after starting my computer and launching a terminal, I've been maximizing and undecorating the terminal window. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a way to use command line arguments to launch my current favorite terminal: Sakura, in maximized and undecorated mode. To put it simply, I had three options:

• Try to find another terminal app that does what I need
• Edit the Sakura soure code to add the maximize and undecorate option
• Code my own app

I elected for "code my own app" and I called it muterm because it is a (m)aximized (u)ndecorated (term)inal emulator. This would also be a good introduction for anyone interested in adding a terminal emulator to a Vala project.
Here is my main.vala code:

using Gtk;
using Vte;
private class Term
{
    private Term()
    {
        //start with a gtk window
        Window w;
        //we also need a vte terminal
        Terminal term;
        //create our new window
        w = new Window(Gtk.WindowType.TOPLEVEL);
        //create the new terminal
        term = new Terminal();
        //connect exiting on the terminal with quiting the app
        term.child_exited.connect ( (t)=> { Gtk.main_quit(); } );
        //fork a command to run when the terminal is started
        term.fork_command(null,null,null,null, true, true,true);
        //add the terminal to the window
        w.add(term);
        //maximize the window
        w.maximize();
        //undecorate the window
        w.set_decorated(false);
        //try to set the icon
        try{
            w.set_icon_from_file("/usr/share/pixmaps/gnome-term.png");
        }catch(Error er)
        {
            //we don't really need to print this error
            stdout.printf(er.message);
        }
        //show our window and all children of our window
        w.show_all();
    }
    private void run()
    {
        //start the gtk mainloop
        Gtk.main();
    }

    private static void main(string[] args)
    {
        Term t;
        Gtk.init(ref args);
        t = new Term();
        t.run();
    }
}

The code is compiled with:

valac --pkg gtk+-2.0 --pkg vte main.vala -o muterm

It took me a while to realize that I didn't need to have values for all of the Vte.Terminal.fork_command() function. Howerver, I should allow passing a directory as an arguement and have muterm start in that directory as the `pwd`. Copying and pasting text in the terminal would also be a great idea. Maybe, we'll see what the future holds.

I'd show a screenshot, but really, how different do terminals really look?