Hints using "\r" in regex make screen change content

[rafalglowacz]

Describe the bug

I use the Hints kitten with the --regex option that includes the "\r" character. In some situations, activating the hints changes the contents of the screen which is disorienting because the text I wanted to interact with is now missing or somewhere else and I can't find it.

To Reproduce

1. Start Kitty with:

   kitty -c none -o "map ctrl+shift+space kitten hints --type regex --regex '[\w\r]{5,}' --program -"
   

2. In the new Kitty window, echo some text:

   echo '66b692 631762 89a43c 0fa717 896672 172f1a 40a8f0 4da187 165371 4e077b e5da3f a4ace4 02bad2 b57c78 e488b1 dd072d 4dc42f 847d4d fd6e6e 8a6d8b 47ebb7 c62ada 05a7ba e1469b 33fdfd a8990c 17b89f f62c49 0ffe07 c0cf79 137410 96df2c cc0bdb 915488 5b2870 cca1c4 39c7b5 82dae4 8e6c06 b14769 cd7792 4b730b c8cc66 12dab6 6e50e2 99501e 02a35e cf3f0a 33303b 901638 cb88ec c86235 c83082 91eb8b 2ca27e b1e899 b213b4 70cf79 bc0899 cd7c91 0646d1 ad9c91 26e1bf 56e1ae 3404c0 b80712 55bbed 346824 48b997 255add 02b4eb 69ef1a 1c3a09 0c2fb8 c14f71 1a882f 0c77a3 0d0a27 a6f01d 4b28a9 032987 331544 62a23b 80548a f1ec09 b70f1b 2689bc 2b69b2 ba3469 4876d6 114d1d 11aaf0 4aab72 682042 a22410 6dcd50 b1bf59 eb3a90 62493d 68285e 41ca1a 440a50 312155 cc1e0e fde4d9 7b1557 337819 3dc6a8 d80009 fac89d 09189f 3c7898 1a37f2 d99b74 ae6860 9de0a4 d44d4d cac15a 52d856 7a2148 536f93 34aaed ad5524 61b71a c1325d 1977b2 c51e5f 27e544 bf8fb4 e49def 3f636f eccf8b 8d72fa 1f8f78 26a0d9 b46353 ca0efc 01607a 2a10d2 1ce39a 7e8e9a 8bf04f b4785d 4aed1b 9c7b5a aa7285 a73855 a9e35e 50e338 dd1d3c dc9def e5d48d b29aac b0c609 a1e4dd 3a752b 260671 b073de 54012f 307c6e 4572d0 f9f025 2eea50 c595d3 ec9f72 570325 f0224d 93cc60 acebc4 74269e 5c3dea 4e5cb4 f03eab 1b0208 a2db84 baae26 bf64f5 3533c2 c23873 a045e4 c2ee75 6b07ce d739f5 d12e4c ddabb0 dea1fd 4febcf 85cadc 5c0871 c3e98b 592742 902537 021b64 25071b fc4091 a3eec9 ad03be 7c516b c25d20 afed41 1e9d5b 55168e 719ba8 4f32a3 8d1810 6c4f75 03d2d0 d66feb db7c69 f6d1c9 c9b373 4c17ec 802ee3 32719f fe9f4e 73dff0 9f4ff5 392145 8a383e 224d53 da1123 1b6eb0 98b16c 597268 600f57 b9ce77 da7a8f 0f81ea 556d9b 8f71f1 044587 da7700'
   

3. Press Ctrl+Shift+Space

4. The text will change on the screen. See the video below - there are fewer lines when hints are active.

Video

Screencast_20250523_225145.webm

Environment details

kitty 0.42.0 created by Kovid Goyal
Linux rafal-home 6.14.6-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 09 May 2025 17:36:18 +0000 x86_64
S{PRETTY_NAME} 6.14.6-arch1-1 (/dev/tty)

DISTRIB_ID="EndeavourOS"
DISTRIB_RELEASE="rolling"
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="EndeavourOS Linux"
DISTRIB_CODENAME="rolling"
Running under: Wayland (kwin 6.3.5) missing: single_pixel_buffer
OpenGL: '4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 25.1.1-arch1.1' Detected version: 4.6
Frozen: False
Fonts:
  medium: NotoSansMono-Regular: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoSansMono-Regular.ttf:0
          Features: ()
    bold: NotoSansMono-Bold: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoSansMono-Bold.ttf:0
          Features: ()
  italic: NotoSansMono-Regular: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoSansMono-Regular.ttf:0
          Features: ()
      bi: NotoSansMono-Bold: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoSansMono-Bold.ttf:0
          Features: ()
Paths:
  kitty: /usr/bin/kitty
  base dir: /usr/lib/kitty
  extensions dir: /usr/lib/kitty/kitty
  system shell: /usr/bin/zsh
System color scheme: dark. Applied color theme type: none
Loaded config overrides:
  map ctrl+shift+space kitten hints --type regex --regex '[\w\r]{5,}' --program -

Config options different from defaults:
Added shortcuts:
	ctrl+shift+space →  kitten hints --type regex --regex '[\w\r]{5,}' --program -

Important environment variables seen by the kitty process:
	PATH                                /run/user/1000/fnm_multishells/13182_1748034235554/bin:/home/rafal/.local/share/fnm:/home/rafal/.composer/vendor/bin:/home/rafal/.config/composer/vendor/bin:/home/rafal/bin:/home/rafal/.cargo/bin:/home/rafal/.local/bin:/home/rafal/.local/bin/go/bin:/home/rafal/bin2:/home/rafal/dev/flutter/bin:/home/rafal/.local/share/nvim/mason/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/default/bin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl:/usr/lib/rustup/bin:/home/rafal/.fzf/bin
	LANG                                en_US.UTF-8
	EDITOR                              nano
	SHELL                               /usr/bin/zsh
	DISPLAY                             :0
	WAYLAND_DISPLAY                     wayland-0
	USER                                rafal
	LC_ADDRESS                          pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_IDENTIFICATION                   pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_MEASUREMENT                      pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_MONETARY                         pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_NAME                             pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_NUMERIC                          pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_PAPER                            pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_TELEPHONE                        pl_PL.UTF-8
	LC_TIME                             pl_PL.UTF-8
	XDG_DATA_DIRS                       /home/rafal/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share:/usr/share
	XDG_RUNTIME_DIR                     /run/user/1000
	XDG_CONFIG_DIRS                     /home/rafal/.config/kdedefaults:/etc/xdg
	XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP                 KDE
	XDG_MENU_PREFIX                     plasma-
	XDG_SEAT                            seat0
	XDG_SEAT_PATH                       /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0
	XDG_SESSION_CLASS                   user
	XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP                 KDE
	XDG_SESSION_ID                      2
	XDG_SESSION_PATH                    /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session2
	XDG_SESSION_TYPE                    wayland
	XDG_VTNR                            2

[kovidgoyal]

This is to be expected. You have \r in your at the start of the pattern,
that means the displayed hint will replace the \r causing line reflow to
change. I dont know what you want to match, your pattern is trying to
match 5 word or carriage return characters, what is it you are actually
trying to match?

[rafalglowacz]

The actual pattern I use is [\w.:/\\@~\r+-]{5,}. When creating the issue I reduced it to [\w\r]{5,} for simplicity. It's a general purpose pattern, I prefer that to having different one for branch names, different one for paths etc.

I understand that under then hood there's probably some kind of search and replace happening and from the point of view of that code a line break is a character like any other, but from the user's point of view that is not the case. Ideally one hint mark would occupy one visible character, so line breaks wouldn't count. I realize this could be easier said than than though.

For now, I've changed my pattern to [\w.:/\\@~+-]{2}[\w.:/\\@~\r+-]{3,}. The first half is almost the same as the second half, just without the line breaks and it matches 2 characters exactly, which is the maximum number of hint marks I ever get. This way a hint mark will never eat up a line break, I'll just occasionally get a partial match (without the first character if it's in the previous line).

[rafalglowacz]

Thank you for the change!