Vim Kitty Navigator

This plugin is a port of Chris Toomey's vim-tmux-navigator plugin. When combined with a set of kitty key bindings and kittens, the plugin will allow you to navigate seamlessly between vim and kitty splits using a consistent set of hotkeys.

Important

This plugin requires kitty v0.30.0 or higher.

Usage

This plugin provides the following mappings which allow you to move between Vim panes and kitty splits seamlessly.

• <ctrl-h> → Left
• <ctrl-j> → Down
• <ctrl-k> → Up
• <ctrl-l> → Right

If you want to use alternate key mappings, see the configuration section below.

Installation

Neo/Vim

You can install vim-kitty-navigator using your favorite plugins manager:

Using vim-plug

Plug 'knubie/vim-kitty-navigator'

Using lazy.nvim

-- init.lua
{
    "knubie/vim-kitty-navigator"
}

Kitty

To configure the kitty side of this customization there are two parts:

1. Add this snippet to kitty.conf

Add the following to your ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf file:

map ctrl+h neighboring_window left
map ctrl+j neighboring_window down
map ctrl+k neighboring_window up
map ctrl+l neighboring_window right
map --when-focus-on var:IS_VIM=true ctrl+h
map --when-focus-on var:IS_VIM=true ctrl+j
map --when-focus-on var:IS_VIM=true ctrl+k
map --when-focus-on var:IS_VIM=true ctrl+l

2. Make kitty listen to control messages

Start kitty with the listen-on option so that vim can send commands to it.

# For linux only:
kitty -o allow_remote_control=yes --single-instance --listen-on unix:@mykitty

# Other unix systems:
kitty -o allow_remote_control=yes --single-instance --listen-on unix:/tmp/mykitty

Tip

Mac users can learn more about command line options in kitty, from this link.

or if you don't want to start kitty with above mentioned command, simply add below configuration in your kitty.conf file.

# For linux only:
allow_remote_control yes
listen_on unix:@mykitty

# Other unix systems:
allow_remote_control yes
listen_on unix:/tmp/mykitty

Tip

After updating kitty.conf, close kitty completely and restart. Kitty does not support enabling allow_remote_control on configuration reload.

You can provide a kitty remote control password by setting the variable g:kitty_navigator_password to the desired kitty password, e.g.:

let g:kitty_navigator_password = "my_vim_password"

How it works

The keyboard shortcut mappings we set up in kitty.conf come in two sets. The first set enables split window navigation within kitty, and the second set disables those shortcuts when the IS_VIM user var is set to true. This essentially disables the mappings when we are inside of vim because the vim plugin sets IS_VIM to true when vim is opened, and sets it to false when it closes.

Once inside of vim, the plugin sets up keybindings for navigating vim splits with the same key bindings we defined in kitty.conf. The plugin will then detect if there are no more splits to navigate to, and then forward the neighboring_window command to kitty using kitty's remote control feature.

Configuration

Custom Key Bindings

If you don't want the plugin to create any mappings, you can use the five provided functions to define your own custom maps. You will need to define custom mappings in your ~/.vimrc as well as update the bindings in kitty to match.

Vim

Add the following to your ~/.vimrc to define your custom maps:

let g:kitty_navigator_no_mappings = 1

nnoremap <silent> {Left-Mapping} :KittyNavigateLeft<cr>
nnoremap <silent> {Down-Mapping} :KittyNavigateDown<cr>
nnoremap <silent> {Up-Mapping} :KittyNavigateUp<cr>
nnoremap <silent> {Right-Mapping} :KittyNavigateRight<cr>

Note

Each instance of {Left-Mapping} or {Down-Mapping} must be replaced in the above code with the desired mapping. Ie, the mapping for <ctrl-h> => Left would be created with nnoremap <silent> <c-h> :KittyNavigateLeft<cr>.

Navigating In Stacked Layout

By default vim-kitty-navigator prevents navigating to "hidden" windows while in stacked layout. This is to prevent accidentally switching to a window that is "hidden" behind the current window. The default behavior can be overridden by setting the g:kitty_navigator_enable_stack_layout variable to 1 in your ~/.vimrc

let g:kitty_navigator_enable_stack_layout = 1

Warning

Breaking changes

The latest version of this plugin requires kitty v0.30.0 or higher. This version introduced a new option to kitty @ focus-window that allows focusing a neighboring window.