Prevent nesting?

[LandonSchropp]

Is there a setting available to prevent nesting when attaching from inside of an existing Zellij session? For example, if I'm inside the remarkable-pancake, and I run zellij attach quirky-letters, is there a way I can automatically detach from remarkable-pancake before attaching to quirky-letters?

[imsnif]

I don't think there's a way to do this now from the CLI, but there is from plugins. We use it for the session-manager have you considered using it? (by default with Ctrl o + w starting from 0.38.0)

[LandonSchropp]

@imsnif Thanks for the reply. I was mainly asking because I have a few scripts I was porting over from tmux that allow me to quickly spin up environments, so the session manager doesn't quite work with that.

[sommerper]

I would also like something like this. I use custom scripts to start sessions based on work directory.

It would be handy to have a zellij action detach instead of using shortcuts.

And a zellij switch <session_name> would also be great!

[johnae]

@imsnif While the session-manager is nice I don't think it's very surprising that a lot of people have their own workflows, in some cases ported over from tmux. I assume most people using zellij are developers themselves and people like that will want to have their own workflows, often slapped together through scripts. Nothing wrong with that really.

Personally, I think the session-manager is a very slow way to achieve the same thing I can achieve using say skim or fzf, finding some project on disk and then switching to that. I can easily put together a script in 10 minutes or less that does this. If only I could switch sessions in zellij somehow through the cli from within zellij. But I can't. And instead I'm forced to either use the session-manager plugin which doesn't really work the way I want it to or not use zellij for this.

Well, in fact, I use zellij anyway because it's so good in so many ways. I just don't use sessions at all because they won't do what I want. I just use tabs for everything in a single session.

I would really like to use sessions though. What would be blocking implementing a cli for switching / attaching to sessions from within zellij without nesting?

[johnae]

For reference, these other issues are related in some way: https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/3081 https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/2090

[imsnif]

Hi @johnae - here's my explanation why this will not be possible (likely ever) through the CLI in the issue you linked: https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/3081#issuecomment-1904349853

As I explained here, it's possible to do this through the plugin API, which is what the session-manager does. If you don't like the session-manager, you are more than welcome to fork it and make it behave exactly as you like. Bonus points: your new plugin will have 0 dependencies, you'll be able to port it to any machine with no installation - in fact, you'll even be able to load it directly from a URL.

I know many people got used to do it differently in other programs, that's okay. This is not how we do it here. I know programming in Rust or Go can be a barrier of entry to some, I'm working hard on adding SDKs in other languages to make this easier.

As for porting a workflow from other programs: I always warmly recommend not to do this. You will invariably reach situations like these. Approach Zellij with a clear mind, use it for its strengths. If you want to make it behave like another program, it might be better to stick with the other program. You'll be happier.

[johnae]

@imsnif Fair enough. In fact, I've already started on a plugin in Rust. I guess I'll have to get with the program 😉.