keybindings should take precedence over standard menu shortcuts

[cortesi]

For example, bind a key like this:

keybind = cmd+h=goto_split:left

Observe that cmd-h still hides the window, which is the default menu shortcut, rather than taking the configured action.

[mitchellh]

These are system level keybinds defined in System Settings.app. Is there a way to override these? I'm open to it if its possible but from what I've found so far its pretty hard to do unless you fully remove the menu item.

[radiaku]

Same here, I looking to repurpose cmd+h to C+w+h and cmd+l to C+w+l . This my keybinding accros mac, linux and windows for my vim purpose.

[ThiefZero]

Tried all different kinds of ways to rebind ctrl+tab and failed. Same issue as the other keybinds mentioned I believe, as the default behaviour in ghostty is to switch to the next tab.

[alinalihassan]

This still keeps me from fully adopting Ghostty, I got used to using cmd+hjkl to move around panes in WezTerm, but I don't know how to override them or where to look in the repo for that.

[aaronjensen]

For me, it's cmd+m, ah and ctrl+tab/ctrl+shift+tab

[lalitkapoor]

I was able to bind to cmd+shift+[ and cmd+shift+]. I saw from the terminal inspector that this is actually left_bracket and right_bracket instead of [ and ].

keybind = cmd+shift+left_bracket=csi:2;10[
keybind = cmd+shift+right_bracket=csi:2;10]

[IanLiuTW]

A quick workaround
If you want to avoid cmd+h from hiding the window on MacOS, you can go to Keyboard Shortcuts in the system settings and override it with other keys for Ghostty. This would free the default cmd+h binding. It works well for me, and it doesn't require installing and configuring additional apps.

For me, I am having issue with super+. \ super+period on MacOS. Seems like this combination is ignored or blocked on system level. I confirmed it using the inspector.

P.S. The super+shift+[ and super+shift+] on MacOS are also used to go to previous/next tabs b default. I think it's on the system level since you can observe the same behavious in browsers and Finder, and there's no way, as far as I know, to rebind them in system settings. This makes those bindings unavailable.

[lalitkapoor]

I was able to solve for the square brackets - #3187 (reply in thread)

and in my tmux config I was able to bind to it like so:

set -s user-keys[2] "\e[2;10]"  # Cmd+Shift+[
set -s user-keys[3] "\e[2;10["  # Cmd+Shift+]

bind -n User2 select-window -t -1
bind -n User3 select-window -t +1

[IanLiuTW]

Sorry for the confusion. In my previous config, I also tried

keybind = cmd+shift+left_bracket=move_tab:-1
keybind = cmd+shift+right_bracket=move_tab:+1

and ran into the issue of triggering the system level bindings first.

[arnaudlamy]

thx!!

[mitchellh]

Okay, this has a lot of upvotes. I'm completely willing to accept it, but I want to once again just want to do some research into how...

[aaronjensen]

FWIW, iTerm2 supports this. They also show cmd+M in the menu item still, but their keybindings take precedence over the menu keybindings. I mention this in case it helps your research effort...

[milch]

I just looked into this and it seems that there are 2 issues here with different root causes. There's the menu shortcut preference issue which people run into when they try to bind "Cmd+h", and there's another issue which is what people run into when they try to bind ] or something like Cmd+1:

1. When you set up a keybinding using a key where the symbol is different than the name defined in key.zig here (e.g. [ vs. left_bracket) this get inserted into thebindings map as a unicode code point here:

   ghostty/src/input/Binding.zig

   Line 1022 in c8950d3

   result.key = .{ .unicode = cp };

2. The defaults are set up using the translated name from the Key enum here:

   ghostty/src/config/Config.zig

   Line 2469 in c8950d3

   .{ .key = .{ .translated = .left_bracket }, .mods = .{ .super = true, .shift = true } },

3. When the event makes it back through the native event handler down to the code where it gets looked up in Bindings.zig, that lookup happens with the translated name as the highest priority and the unicode code point as the lowest priority:

   ghostty/src/input/Binding.zig

   Line 1427 in c8950d3

   /// Get an entry for the given key event. This will attempt to find

i.e. the binding gets saved correctly, makes it through all the intermediate event handlers correctly, but at the final lookup there is a "higher priority" default binding that gets used instead. This is why you can for example bind cmd+one but not cmd+1

[milch]

By the way, for the first issue of rebinding the menu shortcuts, this can be handled by the app delegate. If the event is returned in either of the two branches here then it'll do the default, otherwise it'll suppress it:

ghostty/macos/Sources/App/macOS/AppDelegate.swift

Lines 426 to 432 in c8950d3

	guard NSApp.mainWindow == nil else { return event }
	// If this event would be handled by our menu then we do nothing.
	if let mainMenu = NSApp.mainMenu,
	mainMenu.performKeyEquivalent(with: event) {
	return nil
	}

[rhodes-b]

the literal 1 is a completely separate thing which is not an issue you need to use the spelling of the number so one in this case.

The docs werent very clear on this originally but are now a bit more explicit
https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference#keybind

edit: this does seem to work, it was some of our original understanding it doesn't. I see now that you need to clear the old keybind as the literal 1 and one are treated separately

[radiaku]

Okay, I can make this work on neovim. I leave this for those who want to repurpose their keybinding to:

cmd+h to C+w+h
cmd+l to C+w+l

First change Keyboard setting ( on OSX sonoma ) , settings -> keyboard -> keyboard shortcuts -> app shortcuts and add Hide Ghostty

and then the config is

macos-option-as-alt = true
keybind = cmd+l=text:\x17\x6C
keybind = cmd+h=text:\x17\x68

Screen.Recording.2024-12-28.at.12.00.25.mov

Now I can move from iterms to ghostty.

[LeVuMinhHuy]

you are my hero, wish you all the best 🙏

[jibundit]

Thank you for this suggestion. However it only works the nvim session, and not the shell level, I made some tweaks to work this out.

macos-option-as-alt = true
keybind = cmd+h=goto_split:left
keybind = cmd+j=goto_split:bottom
keybind = cmd+k=goto_split:top
keybind = cmd+l=goto_split:right

[frobware]

In #4134 I was using /usr/bin/defaults to clear out menu bar shortcuts. I don't know off-hand if you can do that programatically.

[mitchellh]

I figured out how to do this. Issue #4590

[renxzen]

Thank you @ThiefZero
Could you please try with:

keybind = ctrl+tab=esc:[27;5;9~
keybind = ctrl+shift+tab=esc:[27;6;9~

Which is what works for me in linux

[ThiefZero]

@renxzen
Thanks for your reply.
keybind = ctrl+tab=esc:[27;5;9~ works!
keybind = ctrl+shift+tab=esc:[27;6;9~ can't seem to get this one to work. Trying to capture it with tmux, but instead nvim sees it as shift+tab. Could be my config, though the same setup I had works in kitty.

[renxzen]

finally could use my work mac to test the changes.
with the same configs i stated above, i could get it to work for tmux without issues

bind -n C-Tab next-window
bind -n C-BTab previous-window

previously unbinding them on tmux, i also tested for your nvim case @ThiefZero and it also worked without issues

vim.api.nvim_set_keymap('n', '<C-S-Tab>', '<cmd>tabp<cr>', { noremap = true, silent = true })
vim.api.nvim_set_keymap('n', '<C-Tab>', '<cmd>tabn<cr>', { noremap = true, silent = true })

furthermore, i leave my config here to see if it helps you gist

[ThiefZero]

@renxzen
bind -n C-BTab previous-window this did it, thank you! It used to be bind -n S-C-Tab previous-window which worked flawlessly in kitty, weirdly. But thank you so much for taking your time to help fix this! 😄

[aaronjensen]

If you want to use C-S-Tab, you can use this:

keybind = ctrl+tab=text:\x1b[9;5u
keybind = ctrl+shift+tab=text:\x1b[1;5Z

Note that for some reason esc:[1;5Z does not work through tmux. It ends up coming through as just backtab I think.

Also, afaict, this is the correct escape sequence for ctrl-tab and ctrl-shift-tab per fixterms: https://www.leonerd.org.uk/hacks/fixterms/

I don't know what the other one represents. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[zoriya]

Could keybind = clear also clear those OS level shortcuts? or do we need to manually add a keybind = cmd+h=unbind?