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points by jaywcarman 2 days ago | 0 comments

I've tried Ghostty and it's great, but Kitty's hints mode[1] is the one feature keeping me from switching from Kitty to Ghostty. There are quite a few discussions around this and similar features in the Ghosstty-org/ghostty Discussions[2] which I follow. Most of them are references from ghostty-org/ghostty/discussions/2394[3]. Maybe now that Ghostty has finished implementing Kitty graphics hints will be next .

[1]: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/hints/

[2]: https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/discussions

[3]: https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/discussions/2394

[–] nullwarp 2 days ago

How have I not heard of hints mode before, that is amazing. Thanks for pointing it out I need to go remember some new hotkeys now.

[–] elcritch 2 days ago

Definitely stealing those hotkeys for my own terminal emulator! Was wanting similar functionality but wasn't sure of the shortcuts to use.

[–] Graziano_M 2 days ago

Yeah this is what is keeping me from using ghostty. Unfortunately I think that discussion is dead and no one agrees on the design of the three or so separate parts. I maintain a fork with quick select for my own purposes but I can’t use it at work.

[–] Graziano_M 2 days ago

BTW here is my fork: https://github.com/Grazfather/ghostty/tree/quick_select

    link = copy_to_clipboard=[0-9a-f]{7,40}
    link = open=https?://[a-zA-Z0-9.]+[-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\\+.~#?&//=]*
    keybind = ctrl+o>y=quick_select

Far from perfect. No way to bind to specific action:regex pair, so `ctrl+o` then `y` will show hints for both urls, which it'll try to open, and git hashes, which it'll copy to the clipboard.

[–] pjjpo 1 day ago

Out of curiosity if Kitty works well for you what would be the reason to switch to Ghostty? I've never tried Kitty before but now want to see what it's like since it seems quite advanced.

[–] idoubtit 1 day ago

I'm not the GP, but I did use Kitty, then switched to Ghostty. There were some great features (e.g. a shorcut to load the current terminal content in a text editor), some arguable points (e.g. Python is Kitty's script language and I had to use it to configure tabs to my taste) and some annoyances (I've had various crashes with Kitty's Debian package, though it did get stable in later years).

For me, the major pain was font rendering. I could not find a portable configuration that would work with any screen. And even worse, for some pixel densities, whatever configuration I tried, the result was awful. In some cases, I vaguely remember there was a legacy mode that made text legible, but it had its own problems.

[–] elias1233 1 day ago

Make a fork and Claude can probably one-shot it. Mitchell will not accept a vibe coded PR though, but that is fine if it is for personal use.

I added Tmux control mode (a pretty extensive feature) https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/Control-Mode to Ghostty: https://github.com/eliasfloreteng/ghostty-tmux and I use that version every day

[–] dirkg 1 day ago

I wonder if these exist in Wezterm or can be added as a lua plugin?

[–] vicek22 20 hours ago

I had no idea hints existed and that I needed them so badly.

If anyone is interested, I run zellij in my ghostty, and I let AI write a zellij hints plugin. It works ok. https://github.com/viktomas/zellij-hints

[–] KetoManx64 14 hours ago

Starred and and cloned to my own zellij config, thank you!

[–] bayesnet 1 day ago

I was literally just griping about how I couldn't do this. I had no idea it was possible with kitty. Now to decide whether to switch back for it...

As an aside, I love ghostty and I think it's the most responsive terminal emulator around. But kitty was what got me off Terminal.app and I think it's not given enough love around here.

[–] nitnelave 1 day ago

Wezterm has a similar feature with QuickSelect, absolutely game-changing for keyboard-driven workflows

[–] shoobiedoo 2 days ago

Oof, I've never heard of that and it sounds amazing

[–] KetoManx64 14 hours ago

Did not know about this either. Thank you very much stranger for making me one of the daily 10,000!

[–] estetlinus 2 days ago

Hints Mode, yummy. That would be nice.

[–] guipsp 2 days ago

See like something that can be handled by the multiplexer?

[–] 5-0 1 day ago

I'm thinking the same (e.g. extrakto). Am I missing something?