Implementing the Kitty keyboard protocol
I'm re-posting this feature request here, because I posted it on the wrong repository: gnome-terminal#7938 (closed)
The Kitty terminal implements a new, backward compatible, keyboard protocol:
https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/keyboard-protocol/
There are various problems with the current state of keyboard handling in terminals. They include:
- No way to use modifiers other than ctrl and alt
- No way to reliably use multiple modifier keys, other than, shift+alt and ctrl+alt.
- Many of the existing escape codes used to encode these events are ambiguous with different key presses mapping to the same escape code.
- No way to handle different types of keyboard events, such as press, release or repeat
- No reliable way to distinguish single Esc key presses from the start of a escape sequence. Currently, client programs use fragile timing related hacks for this, leading to bugs, for example: neovim #2035.
To solve these issues and others, kitty has created a new keyboard protocol, that is backward compatible but allows applications to opt-in to support more advanced usages.
There are already other terminals than Kitty that implement this protocol (foot and WezTerm). Also, some popular softwares like neovim support this protocol, as well as libraries like crossterm and notcurses that are used by a lot of different applications.
So implementing this protocol into the Gnome Terminal can benefits a lot of users. What is your opinion about it?