Background images based on OS appearance

[Anaritus]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I hope this just exists and I could not find it, but

How do you configure background images to switch when switching system color preference?

I tried adding background image property to theme.conf file, but it does not seem to work. Seems crucial since for dark schemes you would want darker bg and for light lighter.

Describe the solution you'd like

Ideal solution would be to just make background_image work in theme config files

Describe alternatives you've considered

I could find only those workarounds, which seem too narrow for such a simple feature:

• Use custom image for at most one color scheme, for the other overwrite with plain color and be boring
• Script switching with kittten @ --to. I could not do that successfully since sketchybar (which I would like to use for scripting) did not expand $KITTY_LISTEN_ON variable

Additional context

Have a pic of my cat I guess idk

[kovidgoyal]

Create a watcher script and use the on_color_scheme_preference_change()
callback to change whatever other aspects of kitty apart from colors you
want to.

https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/launch/#watchers

[Anaritus]

@kovidgoyal I am trying to follow the docs, however unsuccessful. Could you elaborate pls what am I doing wrong?

My watcher file is

# color_theme_watcher.py
from kitty.boss import Boss
from kitty.window import Window


def on_color_scheme_preference_change(
    boss: Boss, window: Window, data: dict
) -> None:
    img_path = "~/Documents/wallpapers/an_astronaut_playing_a_piano.png"
    if data["is_dark"]:
        img_path = "~/Documents/wallpapers/abstract.png"
    boss.call_remote_control(
        window,
        ("set-background-image", img_path),
    )

In my conf file there is a line watcher ~/.config/kitty/color_theme_watcher.py

When killing and reopening kitty window, nothing happens on system appearance toggling

[Anaritus]

Doing boss.call_remote_control(window, ("send-text", "hi!")) instead of set-background-image also does not work (I would expect it to print hi! in terminal)

[alex-huff]

Your on_color_scheme_preference_change will infinitely recurse since the set-background-image command ends up calling on_color_scheme_preference_change again.

[alex-huff]

As a workaround you could do something like this:

# color_theme_watcher.py
from kitty.boss import Boss
from kitty.window import Window

light_background = "~/Documents/wallpapers/an_astronaut_playing_a_piano.png"
dark_background = "~/Documents/wallpapers/abstract.png"
in_call_remote_control = False


def on_color_scheme_preference_change(boss: Boss, window: Window, data: dict) -> None:
    global in_call_remote_control
    if in_call_remote_control:
        return
    is_dark = data["is_dark"]
    new_background = dark_background if is_dark else light_background
    in_call_remote_control = True
    boss.call_remote_control(
        window,
        ("set-background-image", new_background),
    )
    in_call_remote_control = False

[Anaritus]

Ah, so on_color_scheme_preference_change also triggers on updates of theme? I though it only updates on system preference change. Anyway, thank you!

[alex-huff]

Your on_color_scheme_preference_change will infinitely recurse since the set-background-image command ends up calling on_color_scheme_preference_change again.

Actually, 53bb4f0 fixes this.