zellij-org/zellij

Support reading keyboard input

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#2,199 opened on Feb 26, 2023

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 (1 comment) (11 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (32,593 stars) (1,191 forks)batch import
help wanted

Description

This has come up a few times in various issues such as: https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/1807 https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/1962

and numerous times discussing Zellij with peers and colleagues. A lot of users are currently using tmux and not being able to use their keybinds within Zellij because it only supports STDIN is a big blocker to transition.

I realize that there are some use cases where the behavior may not be consistent (ssh), however, nowadays most developers and general users will spend the vast majority of their time on their local setup.

I truly believe that this would improve the experience of the vast majority of users in most use cases. This would also be a more intuitive experience for new users of Zellij, which seems to be something that the project values.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
4
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
over 1 week
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
Rust programmingTerminal I/O conceptsFamiliarity with Zellij codebase
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
20
Research direction
Investigate how Zellij currently handles input (likely through STDIN) and design a solution to capture raw keyboard input. Review the mentioned issues (#1807, #1962) for previous discussions. Look at the Zellij source code, particularly the input processing and plugin system, to understand the architecture. Consider using a library like crossterm or termion for raw mode. The goal is to allow users to configure keybindings that are not limited to STDIN.