setup VS fzf-tab

https://github.com/kbd/binrun

I just wrote it today and still need to package it. I was tired of alt+tab + up arrow + enter constantly to execute builds etc. in my terminal. It calls out to a wrapper script I wrote[1] that does things like queries kitty for its running windows so that when I launch from vscode it can find the right kitty window for the vscode workspace and execute there...

Point is, Kovid Goyal is awesome and the extensibility he wrote into kitty makes all that possible. I had no idea he was also the author of Calibre until I'd been using kitty for a while.

[1] https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/master/HOME/bin/kw

If anyone cares, here's my config: https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/master/HOME/.hammerspoon/i...

It shows off a tiny bit of what you can do with Hammerspoon:

- window and app management

I'll put it this way: Nu shell seems perfectly supportive of my philosophy that a shell is basically a REPL for a computer, and they're taking the ergonomics of an interactive REPL along with the programming language that powers that REPL seriously.

The thing is, there's currently NOTHING GOOD for "shell scripting". Shell sucks (yes it does), so for anything more than very short things I'd rather write Python. But Python sucks for shell-like things, parallelization, it has slow startup, and you also can't do things like put environment variables into your session or change the working directory, so you often wind up writing shims (eg. Broot's br alias - https://dystroy.org/broot/install-br/).

Yes I've looked at Xonsh but maybe the additional syntax is offputting to me. Like, I wouldn't use it as a shell over Zsh (how's Xonsh's fzf support? I don't know, but I know everything's going to support Zsh), and I dunno if I want to use its syntax extensions over just Python. Though It's always on my list of things to re-explore, and maybe it'll click one day. But it being based in Python makes it feel slow (I wrote my prompt in Zig to get it to be fast...)

This is relevant to mention: I wrote a small Python library (https://github.com/kbd/aush) that's basically a DSL for subprocesses, so it tries to make it more convenient to do shell-like things. I find it preferable to shell or Python alone most of the time. Here's an example of its use in my script that creates a new Python project: https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/master/HOME/bin/create-pyt...

I haven't figured out a convenient way to implement shell piping well with Python's pipe operator, or pass through interactive output directly (so things that "update" the display, like poetry and npm don't behave the same as they do interactively) so it's still .9 status, but it works really well for what it is, and you can always write "regular Python" along with it.

Anyway, Nu seems to be an attempt to put a "real" programming language REPL in my shell, from people who have serious language experience, so I'm hopeful it'll be great.

Just sharing my take on that interactive jq (or anything else) repl:

https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/master/HOME/bin/fzr

It's just an fzf wrapper that sets up temporary files and so on. It works really well; it's amazing all the things one can use fzf for.

Since we're sharing, my dotfiles setup has pretty much reached its final form. I use my symgr[1] to symlink my dotfiles repo into my home dir. Pretty much everything I think about this topic is in its readme, as well as a link to my setup[2] repo with my dotfiles showing how I use symgr.

[1] https://github.com/kbd/symgr

[2] https://github.com/kbd/setup

It's not exactly a tiling window manager, but if you can program some simple Lua then Hammerspoon is a godsend. You can program anything any of the other window managers for Mac (like Rectangle, Spectacle, etc.) can do and have complete freedom to set up your own keyboard shortcuts for anything.

I have some predefined layouts[1] for my most common usage. So, one keyboard shortcut arranges the screen how I want, and I have other keyboard shortcuts[2] (along with using Karabiner Elements for a 'hyper' key) to open or switch to common apps.

[1] https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/1a05e5df545db0133cf7b6f1bc...

[2] https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/1a05e5df545db0133cf7b6f1bc...

Figured I'd link my git aliases here, that make heavy use of fzf. The goal is generally to never have to type a filename (eg. for git add) or a commit hash (eg. for cherry-pick).

Here's a link to my 'cp' alias that lets me choose a branch, then a commit to cherry pick into my current branch:

https://github.com/kbd/setup/blob/e23b3e8e2363284c3c766c0be2...

Am i the only one who feels fish is not worth it despite of hype? Don't get me wrong. I think that fish is really good shell.

BUT...

After adding the following plugins to zsh(before you chime in, it's just adding these lines,not anything configuring much. also it auto bootstraps on new install), I found out that fish is no where near configured zsh.

1) https://github.com/zdharma-continuum/zinit (plugin manager)

2) https://github.com/zdharma-continuum/fast-syntax-highlightin...

3) https://github.com/zdharma-continuum/history-search-multi-wo...

4) https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions

5) https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-completions

6) https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab

7) any good shell prompt generator like https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k

For example, I use fzf integration for tab completion. Fish's fzf integration is nowhere as good as that of zsh's. Also, posix compat and almost bash compat of zsh is plus.

I acknowledge that zsh isn't perfect shell either and I have tried and failed few times in past to switch to fish. If you provide me compelling reason/s to switch to fish, I am all ears.

Seriously, see https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab/pull/132.

Basically I want one that works like fzf-tab, but instead of using fzf I want dmenu, I asked chatGPT to make one (I'm aware of how pathetic this sounds...) but it didn't work the way I expected

You might have better luck with finding the answer if you file an issue at https://github.com/lincheney/fzf-tab-completion. Few here are using https://github.com/lincheney/fzf-tab-completion (https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab is a much more popular alternative among zsh users).

Here is another great plugin that pairs nicely with the above.

https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab

Yeah it's just the prefect tool for speeding up so many things in the command line. I even have Fzf pop up for tab completion with fzf-tab.

There's a popular autosuggestion extension (https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions) which puts dimmed suggestions from the command history in front of the cursor. I use & like it a lot -- however it doesn't do command descriptions as in your sample picture. fzf-tab does something similar, though (https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab); I find it very useful likewise.

Just want to make sure: Have you looked into fzf-tab before starting to implement this?