detecting wezterm and calling create tab from console

[prabirshrestha]

I use vim-gtfo which allows me to use got which opens a new terminal pane in the current directory of the file. Is there similar commands to detect and open tabs in wezterm. People use $TMUX environment variable to detect it is running inside tmux and then use tmux split-window. Would be good if wezterm has something similar wezterm split-window.

This feature might be better once https://github.com/wez/wezterm/issues/157 is implemented.

[wez]

Regarding detection, wezterm sets TERM_PROGRAM=WezTerm in the environment.

literally interpreting your request

For spawning a new tab, some of the plumbing exists in the multiplexer protocol, but it hasn't been exposed to the wezterm cli subcommand as of yet, so some local changes to your config and some engineering would be required:

• You'd need to enable the unix multiplexer domain and make it auto-connect per https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/multiplexing.html#unix-domains; with that configured your GUI would then be connecting to the wezterm mux server in a fashion similar to the way that tmux works
• The wezterm cli list command will enumerate and show your windows/tabs
• A CLI subcommand that calls the client spawn method could be added. The parameter is the Spawn struct.
• However, since the mux server is headless it doesn't necessarily know which window/tab has the focus, which makes it a little tricky to figure out which window to spawn the new command into. As it happens in 4e6357b21829d8549ebbb0750d8f7faad9fffc70 which I haven't pushed yet, I've introduced the concept of tracking focus for local tabs, so we could then enable the mux server to track this

Alternatively, use OSC 7

If you set up vim to emit OSC 7 for the directory containing the file when you eg: BufEnter then spawning a new tab will use that directory.

https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/shell-integration.html#osc-7-escape-sequence-to-set-the-working-directory

[prabirshrestha]

actually this could be lot easier if wezterm supports subcommand to split.

https://github.com/justinmk/vim-gtfo/blob/d85e7a2f7e017c54bc5467a3946ca5065d17113d/autoload/gtfo/open.vim#L140

silent call system('tmux split-window -h \; send-keys "cd ''' . l:dir . ''' && clear" C-m')

system is a command to execute shell commands in vim.

Wezterm would need a sub command to open new tab, split tab horizontally or vertically and send keys.

wezterm split-tab -h \; send-keys "cd '/home'" && clear

[basbebe]

extensive console control would also be great, then software like nnn or kakoune could make use of it in the future like they do now with iTerm, kitty and tmux.

[wez]

@basbebe since I don't use those tools, I don't know what sorts of features should be prioritized. I'd appreciate it if you could identify the key things that would help unlock those workflows here in the wezterm issue tracker so that I can prioritize.

What I mean by that is: eg: tmux has lots of functions and commands, so literally saying something like "more functions like tmux" doesn't help me figure out which are the top 5 (for example) functions that make it possible to enable a feature in some other tool, so I'd love concrete feedback on that!

Regarding this particular issue: the title talks about creating a tab, but the example was using panes. Current master (as of about a week ago) now supports running wezterm cli split-pane even if you haven't explicitly configured a mux server, so that part of this issue is "done". split-pane has parameters to set the current working directory (but inherits it from the pane that it is run in) and spawn a specific command.

@prabirshrestha what is left to do before you'd consider this closed?

[basbebe]

@wez sorry for not being more specific.

kakoune is an extensible modal texteditor that enables e.g. opening a new terminal pane or a REPL (or a fzf window or nnn or…) next to the editor. It doesn't do this within it's own window like vim but relies on the terminal or a multiplexer.

see https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/blob/600be827b378444ed548492328a041a0b5154a70/rc/windowing/kitty.kak

it therefore needs to open a new pane in the current window and execute a given command in it. It also offers the possibility to focus a given client (pane).

nnn is a file manager which has a few plugins, one of which is called preview-tui.
Here, a new pane is being opened to run a script to show a preview of the currently selected item. When the new pane is being opened, the focus stays within the first pane.

So I think most of the needed functionality probably would now be there.

[prabirshrestha]

Panes were not supported when I filed this issue hence I mentioned new tabs. I personally prefer opening in new pane.

I will try this on weekend.

@wez wondering if you have instead thought of running lua script instead adding these new commands to console. This way instead of adding new commands you get the full lua api support.

$ wezterm --run "wezterm.newtab()"

[prabirshrestha]

Finally got time to work on this. Sent a pr to vim-gtfo at https://github.com/justinmk/vim-gtfo/pull/55.

I'm closing this for now.

[SuperSandro2000]

Regarding detection, wezterm sets TERM_PROGRAM=WezTerm in the environment.

That does not work over ssh or in WSL without extra work and TERM is a special variable which is treated special by a lot of software. So this should only be used as a fallback and not by default.

[wez]

How about we have wezterm set or otherwise update WSLENV to include something like TERM:TERM_PROGRAM:TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION if it looks like it is running on windows or inside wsl?

[SuperSandro2000]

I think that would be a good idea.

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