Invoke actions from command line

[mrzv]

I can't quite tell from browsing existing issues if the following is on the roadmap or not. Tmux has very useful functionality, where it is possible to open new windows (tabs in zellij) by running tmux new-window within a tmux window. It would be great if zellij supported the same. (Thee are other commands in tmux; new-window is the one I'm missing at the moment.)

This request is different from #284, unless I completely misunderstand that one.

[mrzv]

Just wanted to add that the useful command is not just tmux new-window, but tmux new-window 'command to run with arguments'. E.g., tmux new-window 'ls -l'.

[a-kenji]

Thanks for taking the time and creating this issue!
It is definitely something that we want and it is very good to have an actual issue on that.

[sharkmoos]

Second this. To add to it, the ability to split windows via a command rather than a key binding is very useful. tmux splitw 'ls -l'

[a-kenji]

This is now implemented on the main branch,
it is not in a release yet.

We would be happy for people trying this feature out and getting feedback prior
to a release.

[mrzv]

So how does one run a command in a new tab? NewTab: creates a new tab, and Run: ... runs a command in a new pane.

Also the action syntax is not very user-friendly. Run:, in particular, is going to be difficult to use.

[a-kenji]

It is just, as if you would bind the NewTab action to the configuration https://zellij.dev/documentation/actions#newtab-tablayout :

Open htop in a new tab:

zj action "NewTab: {run: {command: {cmd: htop}}}"

Also the action syntax is not very user-friendly. Run:, in particular, is going to be difficult to use.

Yes, we are aware of that, that will be addressed once we move to kdl.

I will quote from #1265 :

So if someone wants to improve the action parsing here, should implement #771.

[mrzv]

Open htop in a new tab:

zj action "NewTab: {run: {command: {cmd: htop}}}"

That does indeed work, except I don't understand how you got it from that documentation page.

I've never seen KDL; thanks for the pointer. I don't understand enough of it to see how it would let you change zj action "NewTab: {run: {command: {cmd: htop}}}" to zj action NewTab -c htop or something simple like that. But that's Ok; I'll wait and see what it looks like. As long as the syntax issue is on your radar, it's all good.

[a-kenji]

We didn't document it directly yet, since it is not released yet.

You can read more here:
#1265
and here:
https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#unreleased

But actions have already quite a few examples:

        - action: [
          NewTab: {
  name: "a new tab",
  parts: [
    {direction: Vertical, parts: [ pane_name: "testing", pane_name: "building" ]},
    {pane_name: "I should have focus", focus: true},
  ],},
        ]
          key: [ Char: '7',]

This will build a NewTab with the described layout.

You can transfer this knowledge because it is yaml to a single line,
for example:

 zellij action "NewTab: {direction: Vertical, parts: [{run: {command: {cmd: htop}}}, parts: [run: {command: {cmd: htop}}, run: {command: {cmd: htop}}]]}"

As long as the syntax issue is on your radar, it's all good.

Yes it is on our radar. Kdl is made in order to specify commands easily. We can omit the keys that are needed for yaml to function.