"Hints" mode to quickly select and act on arbitrary text patterns visible in the terminal

[rmacklin]

This feature has previously been mentioned in #189 - one of the comments there figured that issue would be a prerequisite, but Mitchell confirmed on Discord that it's not. Thus, I'm opening this separate issue for it (encouraged by Mitchell's desire to "hear more use cases/requests"). I personally don't have much need for the search scrollback feature, but I would have a hard time giving up kitty's hints feature.

For those who aren't familiar with kitty's hints feature, the corresponding documentation is at https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/hints/ (which also links to its source code). From the intro:

kitty has a hints mode to select and act on arbitrary text snippets currently visible on the screen. For example, you can press ctrl+shift+e to choose any URL visible on the screen and then open it using your default web browser.

Similarly, you can press ctrl+shift+p>f to select anything that looks like a path or filename and then insert it into the terminal, very useful for picking files from the output of a git or ls command and adding them to the command line for the next command.

Those are just a couple examples, but through its flexible options you can go further. I don't leverage all the options, but I do use that second example practically on a daily basis, along with the similar kitty_mod+p>h shortcut to select a hash, which is very useful when working with git commands. I also use kitty_mod+p>w to select words, though not quite as often. In addition to the shortcuts for inserting the selection into the terminal at my current cursor position, I also have mappings to copy each of these types of text to the clipboard (so I can paste them in e.g. a GitHub comment, Slack message, etc.).

---

FWIW, here are the relevant quotes from the comments in #189:

@ferdinandyb:

But why I actually wanted to comment is related to generic search, but a bit more specific: sometimes you actually see what you need on screen, but want to quickly copy/paste/execute it without a mouse. Back when I was using kitty I used hints a lot

@sluongng:

I wanted to file a feature request for something like Kitty Hints

[rmacklin]

On Discord someone mentioned WezTerm also has a "quick select mode" and said:

I tend to have to copy a lot of ips or hostnames to ssh into from output from scripts so if i could quickly copy those to use

I figured it would be useful to add a link the corresponding WezTerm docs in this issue - here they are: https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/quickselect.html

I haven't used it myself, but it seems pretty similar to kitty's hints mode. One difference appears to be that the default action is to copy the selection to the clipboard while the action to insert it at the current terminal cursor (i.e. copy and paste the selection, as described in the docs) is achieved by typing the uppercase form of the prefix. In kitty, the --program flag can be configured in more general/flexible ways: in addition to inserting the selection, it can also copy to the clipboard or to a specified buffer, or run the default open program, or launch a specific program in a new kitty tab, window, overlay, etc. That said, I do think WezTerm has the two most common use cases covered.

Edit: It also seems like WezTerm matches all of the configured quick_select_patterns, whereas in kitty you usually filter to a specific kind of pattern like a hash or a file path, since you typically only want to insert a specific type of string at a particular time. But maybe this is possible in WezTerm despite my reading of their docs. Anyway, for Ghostty, I'd vote for making it possible to select a specific type. (If you know you want to select a hash and there are only a few hashes displayed but lots of other matches like file paths, highlighting only hash strings will result in fewer matches/less noise on the screen/shorter prefixes to type.)

[SuperDuperDeou]

Ghostty already has links, it could leverage that.

keybind = ctrl-x=hint:regex:<regex>:copy
keybind = ctrl-y=hint:link:link-url:open_browser

[jwllzp]

it does but having a different keybind for every pattern can be overkill. Wezterm's implementation is simple. You turn on quick select mode and all matches are highlihgted along with a key to copy. You can hit the capitalized mode of a highlighted key to directly paste.

Keybinds do seem like an option for now, but the full feature is still missing.

[Grazfather]

I wouldn't want regexes for git hashes to be used for my keybind to open urls, though.

[dkasak]

Echoing others' thoughts about how useful this is. My own usage in kitty relies on its key arpeggio support, i.e. the ability to run the action based on a key sequence rather than simultaneously pressed keys. I then have an Action x Pattern family of bindings, such as:

# files/paths
map kitty_mod+o>f    kitten hints --program editor --type regex --regex "[a-zA-Z0-9./_~-]+"
map kitty_mod+p>f    kitten hints --program - --type regex --regex "[a-zA-Z0-9./_~-]+"
map kitty_mod+y>f    kitten hints --program @ --type regex --regex "[a-zA-Z0-9./_~-]+"

# hashes
map kitty_mod+p>h    kitten hints --program - --type hash
map kitty_mod+y>h    kitten hints --program @ --type hash
map kitty_mod+o>h    kitten hints --program plumb --type hash

# URLs
map kitty_mod+p>u    kitten hints --program - --type url
map kitty_mod+y>u    kitten hints --program @ --type url
map kitty_mod+o>u    kitten hints --program plumb --type url

# words
map kitty_mod+p>w    kitten hints --program - --type word
map kitty_mod+y>w    kitten hints --program @ --type word
map kitty_mod+o>w    kitten hints --program plumb --type word

# addresses (pointers)
map kitty_mod+p>a    kitten hints --program - --type regex --regex "0x[a-fA-F0-9]+"
map kitty_mod+y>a    kitten hints --program @ --type regex --regex "0x[a-fA-F0-9]+"
map kitty_mod+o>a    kitten hints --program plumb --type regex --regex "0x[a-fA-F0-9]+"

# MSCs
map kitty_mod+p>m    kitten hints --program - --type regex --regex "(?i:MSC)[0-9]{3,4}"
map kitty_mod+y>m    kitten hints --program @ --type regex --regex "(?i:MSC)[0-9]{3,4}"
map kitty_mod+o>m    kitten hints --program plumb --type regex --regex "(?i:MSC)[0-9]{3,4}"

# CVEs / GHSAs
map kitty_mod+p>c    kitten hints --program - --type regex --regex "(CVE-[0-9]{1,5}-[0-9]{1,5}|GHSA-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4})"
map kitty_mod+y>c    kitten hints --program @ --type regex --regex "(CVE-[0-9]{1,5}-[0-9]{1,5}|GHSA-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4})"
map kitty_mod+o>c    kitten hints --program plumb --type regex --regex "(CVE-[0-9]{1,5}-[0-9]{1,5}|GHSA-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4}-[a-z0-9]{4})"

# ELEMENTSEC / MATRIXSEC
map kitty_mod+p>s    kitten hints --program - --type regex --regex "((ELEMENT|MATRIX)SEC-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{3,5})"
map kitty_mod+y>s    kitten hints --program @ --type regex --regex "((ELEMENT|MATRIX)SEC-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{3,5})"
map kitty_mod+o>s    kitten hints --program plumb --type regex --regex "((ELEMENT|MATRIX)SEC-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{3,5})"

# IPFS
map kitty_mod+p>i    kitten hints --program - --type regex --regex "(?:ipfs://)?Qm[a-zA-Z0-9]{44}"
map kitty_mod+y>i    kitten hints --program @ --type regex --regex "(?:ipfs://)?Qm[a-zA-Z0-9]{44}"
map kitty_mod+o>i    kitten hints --program plumb --type regex --regex "(?:ipfs://)?Qm[a-zA-Z0-9]{44}"

# RFCs
map kitty_mod+p>r    kitten hints --program - --type regex --regex "(?i:RFC)[ -]?[0-9]{3,4}"
map kitty_mod+y>r    kitten hints --program @ --type regex --regex "(?i:RFC)[ -]?[0-9]{3,4}"
map kitty_mod+o>r    kitten hints --program plumb --type regex --regex "(?i:RFC)[ -]?[0-9]{3,4}"

This gives me the ability to lead with cmd+p, cmd+y or cmd+o, followed by a letter representing the pattern type, in order to print, copy or pipe (to an external program) the resulting match of any pattern type. Not everyone needs this kind of flexibility, but IMO it would be a shame to design it out of ghostty.

[gabeklavans]

yeah I use kitty's hints wayyyy too much to realistically give any terminal lacking a similar feature a shot. it's just so dang useful, and exactly the kind of feature I want my terminal emulator dealing with (copying what I see on the screen, no matter how it got there, in a quick keyboard-friendly way)

[KorigamiK]

The way foot and some other terms implement is to show lables over the links like this:

[howardjohn]

Adding my usage here since the rest seem to be about keyboard driven workflows. I use Alacritty currently with mouse hints. How it works is I can just hold shift, and any pattern I hover over becomes underlined. Clicking it does some action - copying it (IPs, UUIDs, etc) or opening it (files in IDE).

Config example:

[[hints.enabled]]
command = "/home/john/bin/goland-open"
post_processing = true
regex = '[-\w\d/\.]+?\.go:[0-9]*:[0-9]*: '

[[hints.enabled]]
action = "Copy"
post_processing = true
regex = '[-\w\d/\.]+?\.(go:[0-9]*|go|yaml|yml|md|sh|json|rs:[0-9]*|rs)'

[[hints.enabled]]
action = "Copy"
post_processing = false
regex = '([0-9a-f]{12,128})|([[:digit:]]{1,3}\.[[:digit:]]{1,3}\.[[:digit:]]{1,3}\.[[:digit:]]{1,3})'

[howardjohn]

I think #4379 would actually resolve this

[rmacklin]

Just want to note this appears to also be a feature in
iTerm2 per https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/-/issues/11410 and in Alacritty per
https://bitfehler.srht.site/posts/2023-09-28_git-commit-hash-hints-with-alacritty.html

I haven't used either of those terminal emulators so I'm not sure exactly how the feature compares to kitty's hints feature. But based on what I saw in those links it seems pretty similar. So a "hints mode" for selecting text patterns seems to be supported in four of the popular terminal editors that other folks are commonly coming to ghostty from (kitty, wezterm, alacritty, iterm2)!

(Someone above also mentioned foot terminal but from what I can see in https://codeberg.org/dnkl/foot#urls it seems to be limited to URLs; it doesn't seem like you can add your own regexes to select e.g. git SHAs or file paths. So not quite as flexible/powerful/useful as the others.)

[eliasnorrby]

Chiming in with another use case for kitty's hints. kitty allows you to arbitrarily customize matching and actions tied to hints. I've got it set up to match GitHub PR/issue numbers (like #2394) so that they're effectively links I can select to view them in the browser.

Customization is performed in a python script that's supplied when setting up a binding:

map ctrl+shift+o kitten hints --customize-processing open-pull-request.py

Because something like #2394 lacks context about which repository the PR or issue relates to, the associated action is a chain of scripts that tries to determine that, in my case based on the path of the currently active tmux pane.

[jwllzp]

Soooo I realized that maybe I was trying to make ghostty something it wasn’t meant to be. I’ve been back to wezterm for a week now. Ghostty is meant to be the best drop in replacement for the standard terminal in your os, and niche configurations like this one belong elsewhere :)

[rmacklin]

I think you're mistaken about that; Mitchell has stated (on the changelog podcast and elsewhere) that his goals for ghostty are more ambitious than that. It's just going to take time to get there.

Not saying you shouldn't use wezterm for now (I'm still using kitty, mainly because it has hints - though also using ghostty, mostly via its quick terminal); just responding to the notion that this feature request isn't in line with ghostty's goals, since I don't think that's the case here.

[jwllzp]

Fair. The latest banner for ghostly is aligned with what you say. I was basing my comment from the original presentation.

[illfygli]

I also use the Kitty "hints" feature a lot, for disability/accessibility reasons.

I don't have a pointing device, all my tools are keyboard-first, and currently in Ghostty, I have to resort to "mouse keys", moving the otherwise absent cursor with the WASD keys, and clicking with F.

[pasteley]

I can see how this could also enable the implementation of native tmux-fingers — vim's gw like copy by two-character label

[rmacklin]

I'm in a similar boat, I still use kitty because of how often I use hints. But I do use ghostty's quick terminal for quick one-off things. Looking forward to the day I can fully switch.

[purajit]

Ah awesome - more tmux-fingers users! I had created #7672 for this exact request and just closed that
out because this one has a ton more traction. One of the biggest things that prevents me from not being
in tmux permanently (session restoring and the customizable status bar being the others, though I assume
I'll have to sacrifice the latter). I'm extraordinarily fond of the ergonomics of tmux-fingers compared to
any of its alternatives.

With the amount of terminal features being surfaced modularly, I wonder if we'll reach a point where these
types of extensions could be made by the community.

[Grazfather]

Unfortunately I never got tmux-fingers to work

[Aridor2006]

With some inspiration from #3708 (reply in thread) and by using the standalone tmux-thumbs, this is a workaround I've been using on Mac:

keybind = "cmd+shift+h=write_screen_file:paste"
keybind = "cmd+shift+k=text:\x01cat \x05|thumbs -c -t /tmp/thumbs-selection.txt && pbcopy < /tmp/thumbs-selection.txt \n"

Same as in #3708, two step sequence: cmd+shift+h -> cmd+shift+k. Screen will be put into thumbs and the selected text will be copied to clipboard after.

[rmacklin]

You can do something similar with kitten hints as the intermediary.

This approach is still far less convenient/integrated compared to actually using hints in kitty, where it's one keybind to add the hint overlays and then as soon as you type the matching hint prefix, it inserts that value at your current cursor position.

So for example, you could've already typed git diff and then triggered the keybind to select+insert a git SHA, then typed .. and then triggered it again to select+insert another SHA - then you just type any remaining command line arguments and/or press enter. It's a very seamless experience, and your clipboard won't have been touched. And as mentioned above, you can have separate keybinds for selecting a hash vs a file path vs a URL, etc., which is handy. (If you know you want to select a hash and there are only a few hashes displayed but lots of other matches like file paths, highlighting only hash strings will result in fewer matches/less noise on the screen/shorter prefixes to type.)

It would be awesome to have a similarly seamless experience in ghostty.