GhosttyExtensions

A Julia package that supports some advanced features of the Ghostty terminal emulator. WezTerm or Kitty should work as well.

All features work over ssh. There's no external dependency and TTFP, the time it adds to the first prompt, should not be noticeable.

This package requires Julia 1.10 or higher. It has not been tested for compatibility with other packages that alter the REPL e.g., OhMyREPL.

Important

[BREAKING] News for GhosttyExtensions 0.8.0

The F1 key binding to invoke the Julia help and the dependency on TerminalPager.jl has been removed. TerminalPager 0.6.5 comes with its own, smart F1 binding and should be installed separately. Mind the note in the Installation section below!

The size of plots is slightly smaller now (5 pixels) because Ghostty 1.2 places images differently.

Control-Command-C and Control-Command-X can be used alternatively to Meta-C and Meta-X. I'm still looking for an easy solution for my pet peeve: I just want to press Command-C without thinking how I made the selection (with the mouse in Ghostty or with the keyboard in the REPL). Currently, I use Karabiner Elements to rebind Command-C to Control-Command-C for Ghostty. Ghostty's config must contain keybind = performable:ctrl+cmd+c=copy_to_clipboard. GhosttyExtensions 0.8.0 takes care of the rest. This works reliably and is not laggy (it's possible to do this with macOS Shortcuts but it's too sluggish to be useful). If you are reading this and your muscle memory can't deal with two different key combinations for the same, simple task ("Just copy this selection!"), please open an issue and I'll share the details.

Features

Shell integration:

• OSC 2 terminal title. Shows the active project and the remote hostname when connected via ssh.

• OSC 52 pasteboard support with pbcopy(x) and pbpaste(). Copy'n'paste that works over ssh.

• OSC 133 prompt marking for the prompt modes julia>, shell>, and help?>. Jump back and forth through the prompts or copy the output between two prompts.

Inline plotting:

• Kitty graphics protocol for use with Plots.jl. Plots are shown as PNGs in their original sizes. There is no scaling. Adjust the plot size within Plots.jl (see below). This approach makes plots less blurred and there's no need for any dependencies. Use KittyTerminalImages.jl if you need more features.

• Inline plotting is automatically activated in interactive sessions and works over ssh.

• Switch back to the default (e.g., GKSQT.app on macOS) with inlineplotting(false). Plotting to a GUI app works only on the local machine.

• In non-interactive scripts, call inlineplotting() once to initialize. Remember to wrap the plot commands with display(...).

• Get the size of the terminal window in pixels with pixelsize(). Invoke ?pixelsize for examples about adjusting the plot size or setting default sizes.

Extra key bindings:

• F2: wrap the buffer in parentheses and move the cursor to the start

• F12: toggle the prefix @time

• Shift-F12: toggle the prefix @code_warntype

• Meta-C or Control-Command-C: copy the selection or buffer to the system pasteboard (via OSC 52)

• Meta-X or Control-Command-X: cut the selection or buffer to the system pasteboard (via OSC 52)

• Meta-V: paste from the system pasteboard and execute (via OSC 52)

• Shift-Option-Left, Shift-Option-Right: select by word

• Shift-Command-Left, Shift-Command-Right: select to the start/end of the line

• Shift-Option-Up, Shift-Option-Down: select to the start/end of the buffer

Sorry for the Mac specific key bindings. You can change the extra_keymap in src/GhosttyExtensions.jl.

Meta-C and Meta-X can be made much more convenient by binding them to Command-C/Command-X in Ghostty's ~/.config/ghostty/config. Currently, we need a separate keybind to copy GUI selections made with the mouse as we overwrite the default binding:

keybind = opt+cmd+c=copy_to_clipboard
keybind = cmd+c=esc:C
keybind = cmd+x=esc:X

Meta-V is intended for automation. For instance, you may want to use AppleScript, Hammerspoon, Karabiner, or some other app to copy code from your GUI editor and paste & execute it in Ghostty. You'll be asked for permission to access the system clipboard or you can opt in permanently in ~/.config/ghostty/config:

clipboard-read = allow

Unexported functions

Explore key strokes (inspired by fish_keyreader, useful for making own keybinds):

GhosttyExtensions.keyreader()

Return the size of a terminal cell in pixels. A cell is the space that's occupied by one character (useful for debugging):

GhosttyExtensions.cellsize()

Installation

This package is not available in Julia's general registry. It can be added or dev'ed with:

Pkg> develop https://github.com/piechologist/GhosttyExtensions.jl

Add the following lines to your ~/.julia/config/startup.jl:

using TerminalPager # optional, recommended
using GhosttyExtensions

Note that loading GhosttyExtensions manually after the REPL has been initialized won't work. Also, TerminalPager must be loaded before GhosttyExtensions! The REPL in general is pretty hacky and both packages use different kinds of hacks for their key bindings.

Credits

• Ghostty

• TerminalExtensions.jl

• TerminalPager.jl

• KittyTerminalImages.jl

• Kitty terminal graphics protocol

• The Julia 1.10 REPL, see edit(Sys.STDLIB * "/REPL/src/LineEdit.jl")