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Control some aspects of the Kitty terminal emulator from the command line

Table of Contents

Overview

Summary

Kitty Control is a command line tool to control some aspects of the kitty terminal emulator. For example, with the alias kc for kitty-control, switch kitty configurations depending on which monitor is being used:

# A convenience alias can be set in a shell initialization file (e.g. ~/.aliases)
alias kc='kitty-control'
# Switch to a Kitty configuration tailored for use on a larger monitor/tv
kc load tv
# Switch to a Kitty configuration tailored for use on a smaller monitor/laptop
kc load laptop

Increase or decrease the font pointsize:

# Increase the font pointsize by 4 points
kc font +4
# Decrease the font pointsize by 2 points
kc font -2

Many other aspects of kitty can be controlled using kitty-control. Scripting the Kitty remote control facility enables many possibilities. Detect the environment and automatically configure kitty from the command line or in a script.

Background

The Kitty terminal emulator has a very powerful system that allows remote control from the shell prompt, even over SSH. You can change colors, fonts, open new windows, tabs, set their titles, change window layout, get text from one window and send text to another, and much more.

In addition, kitty is highly configurable and can be controlled from scripts.

Kitty users frequently adjust many of these customizable settings to better suit the environment in which kitty runs. For example, it is often necessary to adjust the font size or opacity, use alternate configations, toggle fullscreen display, set tab titles, change foreground and background color, adjust background transparency or set a background image. Many kitty configuration settings can be modified with defined keymaps and set on the fly with a couple of keystrokes. Others require a little more effort, knowledge, and memory (human memory).

Scripting some kitty customization enables support for automation and provides an additional layer of convenience. In particular, scripted kitty actions enables quick and easy switching between preconfigured kitty configuration files without losing state or having to quit kitty and restart with another configuration. This is accomplished through the use of the read_config.py custom kitten included with kitty-control or the internal load-config kitten introduced in kitty 0.32.2.

Thus we have kitty-control, a bash script that intends to simplify and ease those kitty customizations used fairly frequently.

Requirements

kitty-control can be installed on Linux and macOS platforms and requires git, bash, and curl.

Additional kitty window info listing features are enabled if the jq JSON parser is installed.

The kitty instance that is being controlled must have been started with allow_remote_control enabled. In order to set the opacity level, dynamic_background_opacity must also be enabled. These can be set in ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf or on the command line. For example:

# In ~/.config/kitty/kitt.conf
allow_remote_control yes
dynamic_background_opacity yes
# On the command line
kitty --override allow_remote_control=yes --override dynamic_background_opacity=yes ...

Install

With curl

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/doctorfree/kitty-control/main/install | bash /dev/stdin

With a clone

git clone https://github.com/doctorfree/kitty-control
cd kitty-control
./install
# Add ~/.local/bin to the execution PATH environment variable
# echo "export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" >> $HOME/.bashrc
# source $HOME/.bashrc

[NOTE:] To force copying of all neofetch and fastfetch configuration files regardless of whether an existing file of the same name exists, use ./install --force

From a release download

For example, to install kitty-control version 1.0.2 release 3:

wget -q -O /tmp/ins$$ https://github.com/doctorfree/kitty-control/releases/download/v1.0.2r3/install
chmod 755 /tmp/ins$$
/tmp/ins$$
rm -f /tmp/ins$$

Features

The kitty-control command can be used to:

  • Easily switch a running kitty instance configuration without restart
  • Set various kitty configuration options on the fly including font size, background, foreground, window size
  • Diff files or folders, selections are performed using the ranger file manager and fzf fuzzy finder
  • Quickly and easily toggle fullscreen display of the kitty terminal window
  • Set the kitty theme on the fly using the kitty themes kitten
  • List colors, tabs, and windows
  • Open an interactive menu system to easily browse kitty-control features and capabilities
  • Display system and terminal information
  • Set the level of opacity/transparency on the fly
  • Input Unicode characters using the kitty Unicode input kitten
  • Select and view an image using the kitty icat kitten
  • Select and set a background image using ranger and fzf
  • Set the kitty window layout using the kitty goto-layout kitten
  • Browse the kitty documentation using the kitty action kitten
  • Automates installation, version checks, and upgrades of fastfetch, fzf, kitty, and itself

The kitty-control installation also installs the nfetch and ffetch commands. This is a wrapper script for neofetch and fastfetch to invoke neofetch or fastfetch with the kitty image display protocol and one of several preinstalled configurations.

Usage message for nfetch:

Usage: nfetch [-a] [-c config] [-i /path/to/logo] [-r] [-u]
Where:
	-a indicates use ascii logo with neofetch
	-c 'config' specifies a configuration file to use
	   'config' can be the full path or name of a configuration
	   the configuration name can omit the prefacing 'config-'
	-i '/path/to/logo' specifies an image for neofetch to use
	-r indicates select configuration file randomly
	-u displays this usage messge and exits
Example:
	Use the configuration file ~/.config/neofetch/config-boxes.conf
		nfetch -c boxes

When invoked as ffetch it serves as a front-end to fastfetch with usage:

Usage: ffetch [-c config] [-r] [-u]
Where:
	-a indicates use ascii logo with neofetch
	-c 'config' specifies a configuration file to use
	   'config' can be the full path or name of a configuration
	   the configuration name can omit the prefacing 'config-'
	-i '/path/to/logo' specifies an image for neofetch to use
	-r indicates select configuration file randomly
	-u displays this usage messge and exits
Example:
	Use the configuration file ~/.config/fastfetch/config-hardware.jsonc
		ffetch -c hardware

Tools

The kitty-control menu system uses fzf, jq, ranger, fastfetch/neofetch, lolcat, and figlet if installed.

The Ranger file manager, Fzf fuzzy finder, jq JSON processor, Fastfetch system info, Neofetch system info, Lolcat rainbow coloring tool, and FIGlet font text display programs are NOT required by kitty-control. However, some additional features are enabled if they are present.

Fzf is installed by the install command, the others are not. FIGlet, jq, Lolcat, Fastfetch, and Ranger can be installed with the command:

kitty-control tools

Individual tools can be installed via the kitty-control menu interface.

The installation of jq, ranger and figlet require administrative privilege.

Aliases

For convenience, alias kitty-control to kc by adding alias kc='kitty-control' to your shell initialization (e.g. ~/.aliases).

After installing and aliasing as described above, kc dark sets the opacity to 1.0, kc font +4 increases the font pointsize by 4, kc tran 0.8 sets a transparent background with opacity 0.8.

See the Examples section below for more example invocations.

Additional aliases can be used to provide further convenience. For example, alias big='kitty-control font 32' and alias normal='kitty-control font 22' enables quick and easy switching between font pointsizes 32 and 22 with the commands big and normal. You can go nuts with this:

alias kitv='kitty-control -i ~/Pictures/Space.png load tv title "SONY Bravia"'

You may wish to set an alias to restore the default Kitty configuration:

alias kdef='kitty-control load default'

Sit back in your recliner with your Framework laptop, wireless mouse and keyboard, connected 4K Ultra HD TV, a refreshing beverage, and kitty-control at your fingertips.

Usage

Invoking kitty-control without arguments displays an interactive menu system. To display a usage message use kitty-control -u. To see several examples, kitty-control -e. To display the full usage message run kitty-control -h.

Usage: kitty-control [-adefhuv] [back <color>] [-c command] [dark]
                     [diff [opts] <path1> <path2>] [font [num]] [fore <color>]
                     [-i /path/to/image] [icat [opts] <image>] [-k] [layout <name>]
                     [load [subdir|file]] [ls|list [self|colors|tabs|windows]] [-m|t <match>]
                     [man] [menu] [fetch] [-o doc] [-s /path/to/socket] [term] [theme] [tools]
                     [title <title>] [transparent [opacity]] [unicode] [upgrade] [-v]
Where:
    'back color' Sets the background color to 'color'
           If 'color' is 'reset' restores foreground and background to startup value
    'dark' Sets the Kitty background opacity to 1.0 (fully opaque)
           Can use 'dark' or 'opaque'
    'diff [opts] <file1|dir1> <file2|dir2>' Displays differences using the 'diff' kitten
           Enclose [opts] and <file1/dir1> in quotes if [opts] are provided
           See https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/diff/#options
    'fetch' Displays system information with fastfetch/neofetch
    'font num' Sets the font pointsize to 'num'
           Can use 'font', 'fontsize', 'fontminus', or 'fontplus'
           The second argument specifies the font size, either absolute, +, or -
           e.g. 'kitty-control fontsize 24' would set the font size to 24 points
                'kitty-control font +2' would increase the font size by 2 points
                'kitty-control font' without argument resets the font size to default
    'fore color' Sets the foreground color to 'color'
           If 'color' is 'reset' restores foreground and background to startup value
    'icat [opts] <image>' Displays <image> using the Kitty 'icat' kitten
           Enclose [opts] and <image> in quotes if [opts] are provided
           To remove all images currently displayed on the screen:
               kitty-control icat --clear
           See https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/icat/#options
    'list|ls [self|colors|tabs|windows]' Displays info on Kitty tabs/windows/colors
        'list' displays full info, 'ls' abbreviated info
        'self' Indicates display info for this Kitty window
        'colors' Indicates display the names of the supported Kitty colors
        'tabs|windows' Indicates display info on Kitty tabs or windows
    'layout <name>'
        Sets the Kitty window layout to '<name>' where '<name>' can be one of:
          Previous Fat Grid Horizontal Splits Stack Tall Vertical
    'load [subdir|file]' Reloads the Kitty configuration in ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf
           Can use 'load' or 'reload'
           Specify a second argument to load ~/.config/kitty/<subdir>/kitty.conf
           e.g. 'kitty-control load tv' would load ~/.config/kitty/tv/kitty.conf
           This argument can also be the path to a Kitty configuration file to load
           'kitty-control load default' loads the ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf config
           'kitty-control load --help' displays a help message for the load command
    'man' Displays the kitty-control manual
    'menu' Displays the kitty-control interactive menu system
    'size w h' Increases/decreases the window size 'w' and 'h' cells
           The 'w' argument specifies the window width adjustment in cells
           The 'h' argument specifies the window height adjustment in cells
           'kitty-control size 4 3' increases the window width by 4 cells and height by 3 cells
    'term' Displays information about the terminal using the query_terminal kitten
    'theme' Displays the interactive theme selection kitten
    'title <tab title>' Sets the Kitty tab title to "tab title"
          Quote tab titles which contain spaces, e.g. "This Is My Tab Title"
          Use '-m <match>' to specify the tab to match
    'tools' Installs 'figlet' 'jq' 'lolcat' 'fastfetch' and 'ranger' if not already present
    'tran [opacity]' Sets the Kitty background opacity to 0.8
           Can use 'tran', 'opacity', 'trans' or 'transparent'
           Specify a second argument to set a custom background opacity:
           e.g. 'kitty-control transparent 0.9'
    'unicode' Displays the Unicode input kitten
    'upgrade' Upgrades Kitty, Fastfetch, Fzf, and kitty-control if needed
    '-a' Indicates modify all windows rather than just the currently active OS window
    '-c command' specifies a Kitty command to run (enclose command and arguments in quotes)
        Can be used to run arbitrary commands, e.g. 'kitty-control -c get-colors'
    '-d' Debug mode - display commands when executed
    '-e' Displays several example invocations and exits
    '-f' Indicates toggle fullscreen
    '-h' Displays a full usage message and exits
    '-i /path/to/image' sets the background image for the specified Kitty windows
        If /path/to/image is 'none' then any existing image will be removed
    '-k' Indicates skip version checks and upgrade menu options
    '-m <match>' Specifies the window to match
    '-t <match>' Specifies the tab to match
        Window/Tab matching can be used in conjunction with most kitty-control commands
        If <match> is '--help' the Kitty documentation URL for matching will be displayed
    '-o doc' Opens the specified Kitty documentation in a browser
        'doc' can be one of:
            'conf' 'faq' 'remote' 'diff' 'icat' 'layout' 'ssh' 'themes' 'unicode' or 'man'
    '-s /path/to/socket' Specifies the socket Kitty is listening on if enabled
        If /path/to/socket is '--help' some help on configuring a Kitty socket is provided
        '-s /path/...' can be used to send commands to Kitty from another terminal
    '-u' Displays a brief usage message and exits
    '-v' Displays the kitty-control, fastfetch, fzf, and kitty versions then exits

Without any arguments 'kitty-control' displays an interactive menu system
Adjusting the background opacity or font size requires the original kitty.conf
that was used for this instance of Kitty to have enabled the following:
    'dynamic_background_opacity yes' and 'allow_remote_control yes'
See https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/remote-control/#control-kitty-from-scripts

Several of the kitty-control commands have a help option, --help. To view a brief help message for the load command run kitty-control load --help.

To view a brief help message for the socket configuration run kitty-control -s --help.

To display the kitty documentation URL for window/tab matching syntax run kitty-control -m --help or kitty-control -t --help.

Each of the 'single dash' options described above has a 'double dash' equivalent. For example, kitty-control -f is equivalent to kitty-control --fullscreen.

Similarly, each of the positional arguments without a prefacing dash has a 'double dash' equivalent. Simply prepend -- before any of these arguments.

Either form can be used:

Single Dash Double Dash No Dash Double Dash
-a --all back --back
-c --command dark --dark
-i --image diff --diff
-f --fullscreen font --font
-m --match fore --fore
-s --socket icat --icat
-t --tab list --list
-e --examples load --load
-h --help term --term
-u --usage title --title
-v --version theme --theme
tran --tran
unicode --unicode

Menus

The kitty-control interactive menu system can be displayed with the command kitty-control menu or by invoking kitty-control without arguments. The main kitty-control menu can be used to perform many tasks including:

Set the background color, display examples, display the manual page, set the window opacity, set the background image, set the font size, set options, open the unicode input kitten, clear the background image, set the foreground color, show usage and version, select and view an image, list tabs or windows, select a kitty theme, diff files or directories, list windows, show terminal info, load an alternate kitty configuration, toggle fullscreen, and more.

Shortcuts exist to quickly select a menu option:

Shortcut / Action Shortcut / Action Shortcut / Action Shortcut / Action
a / about b / background color B / opaque c / clear background image
C / list colors d / diff files D / diff folders e / examples
f / font size F / fullscreen g / foreground color h / help
i / background image I / terminal info k / list tabs l / load config
L / layouts m / manual o / options q / quit
r / reset t / transparent T / theme u / usage
U / unicode input v / view image w / list windows z / fuzzy select

Enter a menu option number or shortcut to select an option.

In the fuzzy selection dialogs, enter a few letters to fuzzy select from the options or use the Up-Arrow and Down-Arrow keys to move through the options. Press Enter to select the highlighted option.

Some of the main menu options bring up a submenu from which to further select. For example, to view detailed information on a kitty window, select w or List Windows from the main menu. This brings up a submenu that lists the kitty windows along with a fuzzy selection dialog using fzf. Select a window and detailed information on that window will be displayed. A similar menu option exists to select a kitty tab for information display.

Note that the kitty window and tab information display via the menu interface requires the jq JSON parsing utility. Without jq all window and tab info is displayed.

Man pages

UNIX style manual pages are installed for kitty-control, nfetch, and ffetch. To view these manual pages use the man command: man kitty-control, man nfetch, and man ffetch.

Screenshots

The main kitty-control interactive menu provides dynamically generated menu entries. For example, if either kitty or kitty-control have an available upgrade then menu entries to upgrade will be added.

The kitty-control main menu:

Main Menu

The kitty configuration selection fzf dialog:

Select Config

The kitty window information selection menu:

Window Info

The kitty documentation selection menu:

Documentation Selection

Environment

Environment variables can be used to influence kitty behavior. See https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/glossary/#environment-variables for details on environment variables kitty uses. The kitty-control command behavior depends on the KITTY_LISTEN_ON and KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY environment variables.

KITTY_LISTEN_ON is set automatically by kitty and specifies the path to the socket kitty is listening on if one is configured.

KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY can be set by the user to specify the directory kitty and kitty-control search for configuration files and kittens. Setting KITTY_CONFIG_DIRECTORY instructs kitty and kitty-control to ignore files in ~/.config/kitty.

For example, if kitty was started with the command:

kitty --override allow_remote_control=yes --listen-on unix:/tmp/mykitty

then KITTY_LISTEN_ON would be set to unix:/tmp/mykitty and kitty-control would use that socket to communicate with kitty. The socket that kitty-control uses can be overridden with the -s /path/to/socket command line arguments. This can be used to tell kitty-control to communicate with another instance of kitty or used when running kitty-control from a non-kitty terminal or console.

Examples

Example invocations of kitty-control

To set a transparent Kitty background with 0.9 opacity

kitty-control tran 0.9

To set the Kitty background to fully opaque (no transparency)

kitty-control dark

To set the Kitty background color to black and foreground color to white

kitty-control back black fore white

To load the Kitty config in ~/.config/kitty/laptop/kitty.conf

kitty-control load laptop

To increase the font size by 2 points

kitty-control font +2

To set the background image to ~/Pictures/groovy.png

kitty-control -i ~/Pictures/groovy.png

Actions can be combined on the same command line

kitty-control -i ~/Pictures/groovy.png fore cyan font 24

To view the image ~/Pictures/cats.png

kitty-control icat ~/Pictures/cats.png

To view differences between /path/to/file1 and /path/to/file2

kitty-control diff /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2

To set the tab title of the tab currently titled '~/src/borg' to 'Borg Backup'

kitty-control -m "title:borg" title "Borg Backup"

To restore the original Kitty configuration

kitty-control load default  # Or just 'kitty-control load'

Example Kitty Configuration

Included in this repository is a reference Kitty configuration ./config/kitty.conf

This includes alternate configuration subdirectories, laptop, ttys3, and tv with a kitty.conf in each. Also included are Python scripts, example kitty sessions, and some advanced kitty configuration.

The reference configuration is installed in ~/.config/kitty/kitty-control and a Kitty session using this configuration can be started with:

kitty --config ~/.config/kitty/kitty-control/kitty.conf --session ~/.config/kitty/kitty-control/sessions/startup --title 'Reference Kitty Terminal Session'

This uses zsh. To use bash invoke with:

kitty --config ~/.config/kitty/kitty-control/kitty-bash.conf --session ~/.config/kitty/kitty-control/sessions/startup-bash --title 'Reference Kitty Terminal Session'

The reference kitty configuration provided here is not required for use with kitty-control. It is provided as reference with the hope that it will be helpful in tailoring your own configuration.

Update

To update kitty-control execute the command kitty-control upgrade. This will also upgrade kitty, fastfetch, and fzf if updates are available.

Alternately, an update can be performed with curl:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/doctorfree/kitty-control/main/install | bash /dev/stdin

Updates can also be performed with a git pull in the cloned kitty-control directory:

cd /path/to/cloned/repository
git pull
./install

Uninstall

cd /path/to/cloned/repository
./uninstall

Uninstalling kittyy-control removes the kitty-control script, read_config.py kitten, the man page in ~/.local/share/man/man1/kitty-control.1, and the reference kitty configuration in ~/.config/kitty/kitty-control/.

The uninstall script does not remove the cloned repository. To remove the cloned repository as well:

cd /path/to/cloned/kitty-control/..
rm -rf kitty-control