Mapping a keyboard shortcut to clear terminal and redraw current line

[salmankhilji]

As suggested within the configuration docs, I have the following in my kitty.conf file:

map ctrl+l combine : clear_terminal scroll active : send_text normal,application \x0c

When there is no command running within bash (i.e., when it is showing the prompt), this works great: I can clear the terminal and force bash to redraw the prompt using a single keyboard shortcut.

Without the combine feature, I'd have to use two keyboard shortcuts: one to reset the terminal and another to redraw the current line. And, of course, the send_text part is needed because bash otherwise would not redraw the prompt after the terminal is reset.

The issue is that when I have active long running command within bash, say adb logcat, then this keyboard shortcut produces an unwanted ^L character to appear on the screen. (This can, of course, be deleted using BACKSPACE key.) The current workaround is again to map two keyboard shortcuts: one to press when bash is not running a program and another to press when bash is running a long running program. This is not ideal.

Is there anyway we can get kitty to execute the send_text command conditionally? Perhaps it could be another cousin of send_text that internally would only execute if the underlying shell is not running a command, like this:

map ctrl+l combine : clear_terminal scroll active : send_text_if_idle normal,application \x0c

However, I am not sure if it is even possible for kitty to detect whether a command is currently running within the shell or not. Looking at the confirm_os_window_close option, it appears that kitty may be able to detect whether the underlying shell is busy running another command or not.

[kovidgoyal]

It's not possible in general. Think of running a shell over ssh. Without co-operation from the shell there is no robust way to do this.

[salmankhilji]

It's not possible in general. Think of running a shell over ssh. Without co-operation from the shell there is no robust way to do this.

Resurrecting this issue, now that we have shell integration, how hard would it be to implement a new action in kitty.conf to send text only if the current program is a shell and its sitting idle at a prompt?

I am currently using:

map ctrl+l clear_terminal to_cursor active

and this mostly works. However, it would be perfect if I could do:

map ctrl+l combine : clear_terminal to_cursor active : send_text_if_at_prompt normal,application \x0c

The new action, send_text_if_at_prompt, would be ignored if the shell was busy running some command.