Package: kitti3
Kitti3 - Kitty drop-down manager for i3wmKitti3 turnsKittyinto a drop-down, Quake-style
floating terminal for thei3 window manager.Featuresi3wm native,flicker-freevisibility togglingMulti-monitor support with adaptive resizing to active monitor resolutionFlexible choice of terminal position; freely selectable dimensionsGreat responsiveness by leveraging i3wm's IPC APISupport for multiple concurrent instancesKitty argument forwarding (e.g.--session)Installation and setupKitti3 is a Python 3 package thatlives on PYPI.To install Kitti3, either:usepipx(recommended):$ pipx install kitti3or use pip:$ pip install kitti3 --useror copymain.pyto somewhere on your $PATH, rename it tokitti3and make it executable.(Note:
in this case it's your responsibility to satisfy the Pythondependencies)Ensure that Kitti3 is reachable (e.g.$ which kitti3); i3wm won't necessarily complain later
if it isn't!Add the following to your~/.config/i3/config:exec_always --no-startup-id kitti3
bindsym $mod+n nop kitti3where$mod+nrefers to your keyboard shortcut of choice. Take a look at theconfigurationsection below for a list of the CLI options thatkitti3accepts.Restart i3wm inplace (e.g.$mod+Shift+r)Trigger the shortcut to verify that the terminal appears (slight flicker / tiling
noise is normal on the first toggle when Kitty is spawned and floated by Kitti3)ConfigurationKitti3 does not make use of a dedicated configuration file, but its behaviour can be
modified via commandline options:$ kitti3 -h
usage: kitti3 [-h] [-n NAME] [-p {LT,LC,LB,CT,CC,CB,RT,RC,RB}]
              [-s SHAPE SHAPE] [-v]

Kitti3: i3wm drop-down manager for Kitty. Arguments following '--' are
forwarded to the Kitty instance

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -n NAME, --name NAME  name/tag used to identify this Kitti3 instance. Must
                        match the keybinding used in the i3wm config (e.g.
                        `bindsym $mod+n nop NAME`)
  -p {LT,LC,LB,CT,CC,CB,RT,RC,RB}, --position {LT,LC,LB,CT,CC,CB,RT,RC,RB}
                        where to position the Kitty window within the active
                        workspace, e.g. 'TL' for Top Left, or 'BC' for Bottom
                        Center (character order does not matter)
  -s SHAPE SHAPE, --shape SHAPE SHAPE
                        dimensions (x, y) of the Kitty window, each as a
                        fraction of the workspace size, e.g. '1.0 0.5' for
                        full width, half height 
  -v, --version         show kitti3's version number and exitCommand line options-n, --name(default:kitti3)The name option provides the string identifier used to connect a user-defined i3wm
keybinding to the Kitti3 instance. Specifically, Kitti3 will listen to i3wm IPC events
and toggle the visibility of Kitty when it encounters the bindsym commandnop NAME-
hence the requirement to include a "no-op" bindsym declaration in your i3wm config.The name option value is also used internally to associate Kitti3 with the Kitty
instance it manages (the latter is forwarded the argument--name NAME). For this
reason it is worth ensuring that an instance name is chosen which is unlikely to collide
with that of another application's window; it would be wise to avoid the likes ofslackordiscord.-p, --position(default:RT)The position option accepts a 2-char ID, which sets the Kitty window's location within
the workspace (and implicitly in which directions to grow the window's dimensions).
The window can be placed in one of nine locations:LeftCenterRightTopLTCTRTCenterLCCCRCBottomLBCBRBThe case and order of the characters are inconsequential (i.e.LB==bl).Note that for backwards compatibility, the position option additionally accepts an older
location format, with the following mapping. The default position if none is provided is
actuallyright(refer to the note on shape below for why this matters). These choices
will be removed in a future
release.OldNewtopLTbottomLBleftLTrightRT-s, --shape(default:1.0 0.3)The shape option specifies the (x, y) dimensions of the Kitty window relative to its
workspace. Allowed values are in the range [0, 1], where1.0corresponds to the full
extent of the given workspace axis.Note that for backwards compatibility, shape values will be interpreted in (y, x) order
when position is set toleftorright.ExamplesCentered terminal with custom name and argument forwardingThe following i3wm configuration snippet produces a Kitty terminal positioned at the
center of the workspace, filling half its height and 30% of its width. It is assigned
the custom name "caterwaul", and the argument--session ~/.kitty_sessionis forwarded
to Kitty when it is spawned.exec_always --no-startup-id kitti3 -n caterwaul -p CC -s 0.5 0.3 -- --session ~/.kitty_session
bindsym $mod+n nop caterwaulNote that any arguments following--are ignored by Kitti3 and forwarded to the
terminal when it is spawned.Multiple instancesMultiple Kitti3 instances (and hence Kitty windows) can be run concurrently; they just
need to be distinguished by unique instance names to avoid crosstalk, e.g.:exec_always --no-startup-id kitti3 -n almond -p CT -s 0.5 0.25
bindsym $mod+t nop almond 
exec_always --no-startup-id kitti3 -n bubblegum -p CB -s 1.0 0.4
bindsym $mod+b nop bubblegumUpdating the configurationKitti3 must be respawned to trigger any changes made to its command line arguments in the
i3wm config file. This can most easily be achieved by restarting i3wm inplace (e.g.$mod+Shift+r), which because of the use ofexec_alwayswill spawn a new instance
of Kitti3. The old instance will automatically exit when it detects a restart event, so
you should not see any stray instances hanging around.DependenciesKitty(duh)i3wm (tested with 4.19 but if you're stuck in the past should be fine on 3.xx)Python >= 3.6i3ipc-python(pip(x) will pull in >=2.0)AlternativesThe followingrantdiscussion was written some years ago and might not accurately
represent the current day lay of the land.The nativesIf you're not too fussed about which terminal you're using then there are several
alternatives out there that do drop-down out of the box, likeguakeandtilda. However,
if you find yourself wanting to experiment with fonts that support programming ligatures
(like the excellentFiraCode), your options
quickly dwindle as terminals based on the VTE library (like the two above) still don't
play well with ligatures.The other bolt-onsBut you're here because you want to use Kitty, so forget about the natives for a second
and instead ask yourself why you shouldn't just be using one of the other "drop-downifiers".
Two notable mentions in this space aretdropandi3-quickterm. tdrop is a swiss army knife
that could probably turn a potato into a drop-down if you worked hard enough, but while
feature rich it can be prohibitively slow and cause substantial flicker artifacts in
i3wm during visibility toggling.Kitti3 was actually inspired by the approach taken by i3-quickterm, which issues
show/hide commands to i3 via IPC. It also supports other terminals than just Kitty,
however its single-shot, mark-based design leads to some speed penalties and unwanted
behaviour when spawning terminals. If you're open to using other terminals than Kitty
(and have somehow made it this far into the readme), you should try it out. It was
i3-quickterm's inability to display terminals as slide-ins (as opposed to drop-down or
pop-up) that prompted the creation of Kitti3.Kitti3 runs as a daemon and listens to events through i3wm's IPC API, using information
about the active workspace to dynamically direct i3wm in how to best resize and position
Kitty when visibility is toggled. This leads to excellent responsiveness and no flicker
artifacts, as well as a seamless experience in multi-monitor, multi-resolution setups.Bare-metal i3wm config"But I don't have a hundred external monitors on my desk!"you cry out. Well, if you're
running a single-monitor setup, or you're simply content with having the terminal
displayed on your main monitor only, then you don't actually need Kitti3 or any of the
other bolt-ons. i3wm is happy to take care of container floating and positioning if
you're happy to work with absolute pixel values. This is where you start (add to~/.config/i3/config):exec --no-startup-id kitty --name dropdown 
for_window [instance="dropdown"] floating enable, border none, move absolute \
position 0px 0px, resize set 1920px 384px, move scratchpad
bindsym $mod+n [instance="dropdown"] scratchpad showand thei3 user's guidewill lead you the rest
of the way.DevelopmentFound a bug? Feel like a feature is missing? Create an issue on GitHub!Want to get your hands dirty and contribute? Great! Clone the repository and dig in.The project follows asetuptoolsbased structure and can be installed in
development mode using pip (from the project root directory):$ pip install -e .This exposes thekitti3entry point console script, which starts the Kitty manager.LicenseKitti3 is released under a BSD 3-clause license; seeLICENSEfor the details.