Customizing Dock Mode Indicator Priority

[k-kuroguro]

First of all, thank you for creating such great software!

I've recently switched from tmux to tuios.
I always keep tiling mode enabled because I prefer splitting panes using Prefix + | or Prefix + -.
However, with tiling mode always enabled, I can only distinguish between terminal mode and window mode by their colors.
Is there a way to make the dock's mode indicator show terminal mode or window mode instead of tiling mode, even when tiling mode is enabled?

Ideally, I'd love to have customizable indicators with conditional logic based on the current mode. Is something like this possible with the current custom dock functionality?

[ska2704]

The built-in mode pill can't do it. A custom dock component gets close, with a short delay.

Why the pill always says tiling. In internal/app/dock_helpers.go, when tiling is on, both terminal mode and window mode set the pill's text to dock_mode_icon_tiling plus the next split letter. dock_mode_icon_window / dock_mode_icon_terminal are only used while tiling is off. CONFIGURATION.md says the same: dock_mode_icon_tiling covers "Window mode and terminal mode while tiling is on". So with tiling always on, only the colour tells the two modes apart.

Option 1: a custom component that polls the mode. None of the dock's refresh events fire on a terminal/window switch, so it has to poll. The data is there, though. tuios session-info doesn't report the mode (it's answered by the daemon), but tuios run-command GetSessionInfo is routed to the attached client, and the client's answer includes "mode": "terminal" or "window_management". With --json that field ends up at the top level:

[dock]
left = ["mode", "custom/uimode", "workspaces", "trail", "tape"]

[dock.custom.uimode]
command = '''tuios run-command --json -s "$TUIOS_SESSION" GetSessionInfo | jq -r 'if .mode == "terminal" then "TERM" else "WIN" end' '''
refresh = "1s"

The catch is that interval refresh has a one-second floor, so the label can trail a mode switch by up to a second. Change TERM/WIN to whatever you like. If you'd rather it replace the pill, drop "mode" from the list (you'd lose the split letter, copy-mode cursor and zoom flag the pill shows). tuios list-dock-components will tell you if the command fails. I put this together from the code and haven't run it myself, so check that first if nothing shows up.

Option 2: make the colours impossible to miss. This one is instant. The window-mode pill uses the theme's chrome accent and the terminal-mode pill uses success (THEMES.md → Chrome Colors). A theme file can reuse a built-in theme's id and override just those two. On the default theme, ~/.config/tuios/themes/tuios.json:

{
  "id": "tuios",
  "base": "tuios",
  "chrome": {
    "accent": "#7aa2f7",
    "success": "#ff9e64"
  }
}

(use your theme's id for id and base otherwise). accent and success also colour the focused border in window and terminal mode, so the border changes along with the pill.

The proper fix would be in tuios itself. In the two tiling branches it could keep the mode's own icon and append the split letter (>_ V / WM V), or dock_mode_icon_tiling could accept a placeholder for the current mode's icon. A mode-change event for custom components would also make option 1 instant. Either might be worth a feature request.

[k-kuroguro]

Thanks! The custom component worked, but as you mentioned, the refresh is way too slow. It would be nice to have a mode-changed event.

[Gaurav-Gosain]

@k-kuroguro the instant version of this landed as a built-in option, so you shouldn't need the polling component anymore:

[appearance]
dock_mode_pill = "input"

With tiling on, the pill keeps the window or terminal icon and adds the split letter after it (WM V or >_ V), and it changes the moment you switch modes. It's in v0.11.1, and it's also on the settings page under Dock.

A mode-changed event for custom dock components is a fair idea too, if you end up wanting something fancier than the pill. Let me know if the pill covers it for you.

[Gaurav-Gosain]

Thanks so much for switching over @k-kuroguro, and for such a clear write-up! You're right that with tiling always on, the pill only changed colour, which isn't much to go on.

#1202 adds a new option:

[appearance]
dock_mode_pill = "input"

With that set, the pill keeps the window or terminal icon while tiling is on and puts the split letter after it, so you get something like WM V or >_ V. The default stays the same, so nobody else's dock changes, and you can also flip it from the settings page under Dock.

And big thanks to @ska2704 for digging into the code and posting both workarounds. The theme colour trick is a nice one to keep in mind even with the new option.

[k-kuroguro]

Thank you! Looking forward to the release.