Is it possible to open quick access terminal on focused screen/monitor?

[larsivi]

I have used yakuake for many years, and one of the things I've liked about it (there are reasons for why I'm trying out kitty fwiw) is that it would open on the monitor that had the current focus. This is usually always where I want it to be, but I can easily move it to a different screen using focus if that is what I'd like. This doesn't appear to be the case with kittem quick_access_terminal, in fact it seems to have an additional problem for me. If it is on the external screen, I then disconnect it, it doesn't show up on the other screen.

Are there ways, via config, I can fix one or both of these problems? Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/panel/#cmdoption-kitty-kitten-panel-output-name

[larsivi]

I knew about that option, but as it appears like a static thing, I ended up using an additional script to figure out where the mouse is, so I could set it dynamically. Thank you for the quick access terminal!

[larsivi]

Well, my fault for not testing that well enough.

I run
kitten quick_access_terminal -o output_name="${SCREEN}"
but if SCREEN has the name of the other monitor from where kitten was initially started, it doesn't move to that monitor.

[kovidgoyal]

You need to have one quick access terminal per output/monitor. In Wayland, that's how the wlr layer shell protocol works. You can only set the output/monitor at window creation time, not change it later, see https://wayland.app/protocols/wlr-layer-shell-unstable-v1

[larsivi]

Bummer, ok. I'll figure out something eventually :)

[lehmacdj]

@kovidgoyal Would you be open to a patch that makes it possible for the quick-access-terminal to open on the focused monitor for macOS specifically since AFAIK this limitation doesn't exist on macOS?

I think adding support for a special "focused" value to panel's --output-name which changes the output on the panel's activation to the one that currently has the cursor makes sense.

Attempting to migrate to kitten from iTerm, but being able to have a floating window that's always on the same screen as my cursor, is blocking me from completing the transition.

[lehmacdj]

Nevermind, it is actually possible to dynamically update output_name on macOS. For anyone else coming across this, this hammerspoon works well for what I wanted to do:

hs.hotkey.bind({"control"}, "return", function()
  hs.task.new(
    "/opt/homebrew/bin/kitten",
    nil,
    {
      "quick-access-terminal",
      "--detach",
      "--override",
      "output_name="..hs.mouse.getCurrentScreen():name(),
    }
  ):start()
end)