Send CTRL-W (h|j|k|l)

[wilriker]

I am trying to migrate from tmux to wezterm (I hardly ever use the tmux-server-survives-window-close and use it for multiplexing 99.9% of the time only). I have configured SHIFT+ARROWKEY to move between panes in tmux and I can replicate that behavior in wezterm.
But I also have a little extended configuration in tmux to check whether the active pane hosts a neovim instance and if that's the case instead of switching the pane it should rather send CTRL-w plus any of h, j, k, l to the neovim instance. That will then (by using a plugin) decide whether it will move around between neovim splits or if at the edge move out to the tmux pane in that direction (if any).

Now I struggle to get wezterm to sending CTRL-w k (or any other of the four characters).

My wezterm.lua has the following defined (removed some irrelevant settings for other keys and fonts) but now I'm stuck and help would be very much appreciated

local wezterm = require 'wezterm';

local move_around = function(window, pane, direction_wez, direction_nvim)
	if pane:get_title():sub(-4) == "NVIM" then
		window:perform_action(wezterm.action{SendString="\x17"..direction_nvim}, pane)
	else
		window:perform_action(wezterm.action{ActivatePaneDirection=direction_wez}, pane)
	end
end

wezterm.on("move-left", function(window, pane)
	move_around(window, pane, "Left", "h")
end)

wezterm.on("move-right", function(window, pane)
	move_around(window, pane, "Right", "l")
end)

wezterm.on("move-up", function(window, pane)
	move_around(window, pane, "Up", "k")
end)

wezterm.on("move-down", function(window, pane)
	move_around(window, pane, "Down", "j")
end)


return {
	disable_default_key_bindings = true,
	keys = {
		{ key = "LeftArrow",	mods = "SHIFT",	action = wezterm.action{EmitEvent="move-left"}},
		{ key = "RightArrow",	mods = "SHIFT",	action = wezterm.action{EmitEvent="move-right"}},
		{ key = "UpArrow",	mods = "SHIFT",	action = wezterm.action{EmitEvent="move-up"}},
		{ key = "DownArrow",	mods = "SHIFT",	action = wezterm.action{EmitEvent="move-down"}},
	},
}

Once that is fixed I also need to be able to have neovim send a command to wezterm to switch to an adjacent pane. wezterm cli seems to be too limited to do so but can I send it to the socket directly and if so how would be the format?

Looking forward to all answers.

Manuel

[wez]

I tried your config but modified to look for vi at the start of the pane title (because I use 'vim' but via a vi alias and that is at the start of my pane title), and shift-arrow presses do result in moving through the panes in vim:

if pane:get_title():sub(1,2) == "vi" then

so the SendString stuff appears to be working correctly. I'd suggest setting debug_key_events = true in the config to help debug what's being pressed, and also do double check that the pane title has the contents you think it does by using wezterm.log_info(pane:get_title()) to log it.

Both of those logs go to stderr, but in nightly builds you can assign a key to https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/lua/keyassignment/ShowDebugOverlay.html to activate to see the recent events.

Regarding calling back into wezterm: the socket protocol is not intended to be used directly, but I'm very open to suggestions on what we need to add support for in the wezterm cli subcommand round out the functionality that you're looking for.

[wilriker]

I tried it with nightly build and there moving inside nvim works with no further config changes but I encountered something weird:
when moving between wezterm panes or moving from a wezterm pane into nvim (but not moving around inside nvim) it will visually appear like the focus has not moved (i.e. the active cursor is displayed in the pane just left and the new pane keeps the inactive cursor). But as soon as I press another key it will update the focus to whichever pane I was navigating to. So it actually has changed the pane but the visual indication is lacking behind one keypress.

Re wezterm cli: I personally need to use ActivatePaneDirection. The vim plugin I use to navigate from inside nvim back to tmux also has an option to prevent movement if the current pane (hosting nvim) is zoomed. I personally don't use that function but if it were accessible via wezterm cli I could replicate the full behavior of that plugin.
I just tried it and found that when a pane is zoomed it already prevents moving to another pane instead of unzooming and moving, so I'd like to ask for such an option (or pointing me to the appropriate config key).

[zegervdv]

To be able to replace tmux for me the wezterm cli would need to implement the equivalents of these tmux commands:
https://github.com/numToStr/Navigator.nvim/blob/0943031f2e30a0ff84212c8848f03ddb4f60554d/lua/Navigator/tmux.lua#L35-L45
So basically a command to jump to the first pane on the left/right/top/bottom and a command to query whether the current pane is zoomed.

I guess the specific plugin could then be extended to support both tmux and wezterm.

[mhanberg]

I am interested in migrating from alacritty/tmux to wezterm, and am wondering if this required any vim configuration to work?

I currently use vim-tmux-navigator and it requires both vim (through the plugin, obviously) config and tmux config to work.

[wez]

Exposing the tty device path is probably doable, with caveats: wezterm supports remote multiplexer panes, so there may not be a tty device path, and on Windows, there isn't an equivalent concept; the ptys are all anonymous.

wezterm has some ability to enumerate the list of processes associated with a pane to support exit_behavior, and it should also be possible to expose that information to lua as well, so it should be possible for you to write an is_vim function in lua that matches against just that list of processes.

[mhanberg]

Nice!

Wezterm looks cool, thanks for creating and sharing with the world!

[aca]

I'm also trying to replace vim-tmux-navigator.
Code @wilriker provides partial solutions but for this plugin to fully work, there should be a api(cli maybe) to move pane wezterm.action{ActivatePaneDirection="Left"} inside vim.

Currently I couldn't find one. Is there any api for it? @wez

[wez]

There isn't an API for that at the moment. #225 and #674 discuss some of the thinking around the possible direction, but there isn't a clear path forwards yet!

[wez]

FWIW, nightly wezterm now has pane:get_foreground_process_name() which works for locally spawned processes, which may make things a bit easier than searching inside the title string.

[aca]

@mhanberg @wilriker

I created https://github.com/aca/wezterm.nvim
For now, I'm using this as a replacement.

[jacobfoard]

Just set this up and its working great, thanks so much @aca!

[drover25]

Thanks @aca for this! For some reason though, it doesn't work on OSX if you open wezterm by clicking the icon. I've tried to debug it, but to get logs I need to launch wezterm from a terminal, and if I launch it from a terminal it works fine :(. No idea what the difference is...

[drover25]

Just in case anyone else stumbles upon this, I fixed my issue. The wezterm.nvim.navigator was on the path in my shell, but not the default path. Specifying the full path of the binary resolved the issue for me. Moving the binary to somewhere on my default path would have worked too.

	local result = os.execute(
		"env NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS=/tmp/nvim"
			.. pane:pane_id()
			.. " /Users/coldis/go/bin/wezterm.nvim.navigator "
			.. direction_nvim
	)

[wimstefan]

Be aware that NVIM_LISTEN_ADDRESS is deprecated -> neovim/neovim#14090 (comment)
Not sure if that is relevant in your case though ...

[lkhphuc]

Has anyone got this running on a remote machine, using wezterm connect ssh ...?
It works fine if I run it locally but does not work in on remote machine. I installed wezterm.nvim.navigator on the remote machine too.
My guess is that since I wezterm UI is running locally, the local navigator does not have control over the remote term?

[illia-danko]

Dedicate to emacs users who use emacsclient and Ctrl-{h,j,k,l} windows/panes navigation, similar to vim-tmux-navigator or evil-tmux-navigator:
https://github.com/illia-danko/evil-wezterm-navigator