Using exactly one OS Window and forcing new kitty commands to open a new tab?

[dcraig327]

How could I allow only a single kitty window and executing this:

1. kitty --detach would focus on the existing kitty window.
2. kitty --detach newtab would focus as above plus append a new tab.

Use case is to simplify Super+T in Gnome, providing a single window as I haven't a need for multiple tty os windows. I've searched in the existing closed issues, in the discussions, on the web, the documentation, and tried kitty-control all with no luck. I maybe searching for the wrong thing, this sounds like a question that would've been asked before.

Unclear if kitty can do 1. or 2. above. kitty --single-instance does use the existing PID, but it creates a new window. No luck with sessions.

[kovidgoyal]

https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/remote-control/

[dcraig327]

thx. wasn't initially clear.

this is the script to accomplish the requirements
saved in a script bound to a hotkey set in the linux distro should work, for those with bash of course. i imagine modifying this script for other operating systems wouldn't be too difficult.

i have seen asked a few times when researching how to do this, people wanting a single hotkey to open kitty. mostly it involves a new instance. understandable that can't be supported in kitty as global hotkeys are an os feature.

there's a similar question asked in #392 -- however I wanted todo everything using kitty and kitty alone and i'm prone to moving my terminal all around the place. which reminds me, i could set this up as a systemd user service, minimized at launch, which prevents sending all errors to /dev/null below.

anyway thx. i believe you understand the use case by now. hope this helps someone else.

#!/bin/bash

#focus existing kitty os window or create & focus if n/a
good_kitty () {
  kitten @ focus-window --to unix:/tmp/mykitty &> /dev/null
  if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    kitty --detach --directory="~" -o allow_remote_control=yes --listen-on unix:/tmp/mykitty
  fi
  kitten @ focus-window --to unix:/tmp/mykitty &> /dev/null
}

#focus new kitty tab in existing kitty os window
hello_kitty () {
  kitten @ launch --type=tab --to unix:/tmp/mykitty &> /dev/null
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    kitten @ focus-window --to unix:/tmp/mykitty &> /dev/null
  else
    good_kitty
  fi
}

hello_kitty

[fab6]

Hi,
Interesting approach. May I ask, if there is also an option to combine several instances later on to get multiple tabs instead multiple windows?
Thank you in advance!
Best Regards
Fab

[dcraig327]

Hi, Interesting approach. May I ask, if there is also an option to combine several instances later on to get multiple tabs instead multiple windows? Thank you in advance! Best Regards Fab

Hi. That's what the bash script above does. Works well for my needs.

[fab6]

Ah, ok, I misunderstood and could not get it working as I am on macos; the detach option seems not to be available; though I am not sure about the other options yet. I will check, but maybe someone has a suggestion.
Thank you!