binding escape sequence

[d3m3t3r]

How do you bind the escape sequence (e.g. "\e[4~") in .config/flow/keys/flow.json? My terminal has the classic issue with issuing "application" vs "normal" mode escape sequences for function keys like Home, End, ...

[neurocyte]

You can't directly bind escape sequences. You have to bind the quivalent key event. This is so that keybindings remain terminal independant and also work in GUI builds.

Why would you want to do this? Is the flow escape sequence parser missing support for a specifc escape sequence you terminal is using?

[neurocyte]

I don't know why tmux tries to be different to every other terminal on earth.

I suggest you just fix tmux to send the same sequence as everyone else by adding this to your .tmux.conf:

bind-key -n Home send Escape "[H"
bind-key -n End send Escape "[F"

[d3m3t3r]

Terminfo database (and termcap before) was invented exactly for the purpose to describe features and behavior of all those different terminals. Rebinding the keys breaks any other terminal application that relies on it (as it should). Basically, you force tmux to send different sequence than it promises in its terminfo entry.

It looks like flow only supports xterm-based terminals now. BTW, "^[[1~" is used by other quite common terminals like "screen" (GNU Screen) and "linux" (Linux console) too.

Flow is such a great editor, I wish you created it 20 years ago. ;)

[neurocyte]

Flow does not support termcap and never will.

Adding support for ^[[1~ and ^[[4~ is a possibility though.

[AndydeCleyre]

I would love to be able to use flow with tmux. I've tried and then postponed using flow a few times due to keybinds not working, and currently home and end are the most disruptive non-working keys, along with the ones for the command palette.

I have figured out just now that shift+{home,end} works, so we can work around the issue by using shift+home, left and shift+end, right. And alt+x does work for the palette, but the other two defaults don't.

[neurocyte]

Flow works fairly well in tmux if you set some more sensible defaults. I suggest you add these settings to your tmux config:

set -g xterm-keys on
bind-key -n Home send Escape "[H"
bind-key -n End send Escape "[F"
set-option -g mouse on

This is still by far not the same thing as having kitty keyboard protocol support, but flow is at least usable. Many things are just not supported in tmux though (like SGR pixel mouse coordinates or 2027 unicode mode) and likely never will be. So for the long term it really makes sense to look at the alternatives. Which is really only Zellij at the moment, but there are more options coming, for example prise (very beta) or the coming-soon(tm) Ghostty session management.