Saving/restoring window colors over remote control from a watcher

[rivenirvana]

I'm using this general watcher for some editor-specific kitty configs:

from typing import Any, Dict

from kitty.boss import Boss
from kitty.window import Window


def on_cmd_startstop(boss: Boss, window: Window, data: Dict[str, Any]) -> None:
    command = data["cmdline"].strip().partition(" ")[0]
    programs = ("nv", "nvim", "vi", "vim", "nano")
    if command in programs:
        if data["is_start"]:
            boss.call_remote_control(window, ("disable_ligatures", "cursor"))
			# set predefined theme conf
            boss.call_remote_control(window, ("set-colors", "~/.config/kitty/editor-theme.conf"))
        else:
            boss.call_remote_control(window, ("disable_ligatures", "always"))
            # reset to configured theme on exit
            conf = boss.call_remote_control(window, ("get-colors", "-c"))
            args = ["=".join(line.split()) for line in conf.split("\n")]
            boss.call_remote_control(window, ("set-colors", *args))

And while this works, I was wondering if I can just easily use the escape codes over remote control as described here to restore the colors on editor exit.

<ESC>]30001<ESC>\  # push to stack on program start
<ESC>]30101<ESC>\  # pop from stack on program exit

I've tried a couple of things, but I figured @ launch --type=background wouldn't work, and @ run didn't work either. I thought @ send-text would be the way to go, but no luck as well. Am I using @ send-text incorrectly?

# does not work even without the printf
boss.call_remote_control(window, ("send-text", "printf '\x1b]30001\x1b\\'\r"))
boss.call_remote_control(window, ("send-text", "printf '\x1b]30101\x1b\\'\r"))

I checked boss.py too and there doesn't seem to be anything else I can use.

[rivenirvana]

Additionally:

• I've refrained from trying boss.run_kitten() to run the themes kitten non-interactively because it changes colors for the whole OS window and modifies kitty.conf and/or current-theme.conf.
• I've also refrained from just calling @ set-colors to current-theme.conf, since I like using the default theme and it has no key-values in its conf file to be read.

[kovidgoyal]

remote control doesnt send escape codes, if you want to send escape codes you just write them to the tty device. How to do that depends on your editor, there are some examples at https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/mapping/#conditional-mappings-depending-on-the-state-of-the-focused-window for vim and neovim. Which incidentally also means you dont need to try to detect when an editor is running, instead the editor sets the user variable and your watcher can react to that.

[rivenirvana]

For posterity's sake:
.config/nvim/lua/autocommands.lua # required in init.lua

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ 'VimEnter', 'VimResume' }, {
  group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('KittySetVarVimEnter', { clear = true }),
  callback = function()
    io.stdout:write '\x1b]30001\x1b\\'
    io.stdout:write '\x1b]1337;SetUserVar=KITTY_IN_NVIM=MQ==\007'
  end,
})

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({ 'VimLeave', 'VimSuspend' }, {
  group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('KittyUnsetVarVimLeave', { clear = true }),
  callback = function()
    io.stdout:write '\x1b]30101\x1b\\'
    io.stdout:write '\x1b]1337;SetUserVar=KITTY_IN_NVIM\007'
  end,
})

.config/kitty/scripts/editor-setup.py # set as watcher in kitty.conf

from typing import Any, Dict

from kitty.boss import Boss
from kitty.window import Window


def on_set_user_var(boss: Boss, window: Window, data: Dict[str, Any]) -> None:
    key, val = data["key"], data["value"]
    if key == "KITTY_IN_NVIM" and val is not None:
        boss.call_remote_control(window, ("disable_ligatures", "cursor"))
        boss.call_remote_control(
            window, ("set-colors", "~/.config/kitty/editor-theme.conf")
        )
    else:
        boss.call_remote_control(window, ("disable_ligatures", "always"))