kakship and kakship.kak

kakship is just a thin wrapper around starship to format the status line of kakoune and is meant to be used with the included kakoune script kakship.kak.

Operating mode

kakship

• overrides override the default config file path with $kak_config/starship.toml,
• sets the STARSHIP_SHELL to be sh
• forwards the given arguments to starship,
• transforms ansi-codes to kakoune face definitions when called with prompt argument.

It uses a forked yew-ansi crate for parsing the ansi-codes to which I just added support for reversed and dimmed ansi-codes that can be used in starship styles definitions.

The kakoune script call kakship in normal mode when idle for all buffers whose names don't start with *. As starship is really fast and format a prompt in ms, the script doesn't need to be clever about when refreshing the status bar.

Installation

Prerequisites

• starship must be installed,
• you should probably use a nerd font for your terminal

Manual

1. Compile kakship with cargo and install it somewhere in your $PATH (for example ~/.local/bin)

cargo install --force --path . --root ~/.local

2. Copy/modify the provided starship.toml to your $kak_config directory (usually ~/.config/kak/)

3. Put the kakship.kak script in your autoload path and add something like this to your kakrc

hook global ModuleLoaded kakship .* %{
	kakship-enable
}

With a plugin manager

with plug.kak

plug "eburghar/kakship" do %{
	cargo install --force --path . --root ~/.local
	[ ! -e $kak_config/starship.toml ] && cp starship.toml $kak_config/
} config %{
	kakship-enable
}

Writing custom segments

To write new segments, you can use the custom-commands module of starship. Define a new section with a dot notation [custom.mymodule], and insert a variable with the same name in the topmost format definition (format=...${custom.mymodule}..)

In case you just need string substitutions (like custom.kakmode bellow), you can avoid calling a shell to evaluate the when condition by setting the shell variable to ['true'] and the when variable to ''. In case no $output variable appears in the format definition of the segment, no shell is called, making your segment faster to evaluate.

In case you really need to call an external command, you have 3 choices:

1. setup shell, command and when and let starship do the evaluation

2. use kakoune expansion blocks (sh, opt, val, reg, file) inside the format and let kakoune do the evaluation. Note than only curly brace is supported as the quoting char.

3. a mix of kakoune and starship evaluations

With kakoune expansion the modeline will change as soon as the variable, register, option, value, used in the expression changes and in the case of %sh kakoune will rebuild the modeline every second or so when in normal mode. In other words, the modline will change without ever needing to call kakship. This leads for example to a custom time segment definition (custom.kaktime below) which will show seconds even if the editor is idle, contrary to the starship time module which changes only during pause.

As for the 3rd option, you can use environment variables (starship evaluation) for telling starship when to display a segment, and use a kakoune expansion in the format to let kakoune do the update as soon as possible (see custom.kaklsp_err bellow).

Kakoune segments

Here are some common custom segments for kakoune. I'll be happy to maintain a catalog if you send me a PR.

[custom.kakfile]
description = 'The current Kakoune buffername'
format = '[/$output ]($style)[]($style inverted) '
style = 'bold bg:blue fg:black'
command = 'echo -n ${kak_buffile##*/}'
when = 'true'
shell = ['sh']
disabled = false

[custom.kaksession]
description = 'The current Kakoune session'
format = '[]($style)[  %val{client}:%val{session} ]($style)[]($style inverted)'
style = 'bg:yellow fg:black'
when = ''
shell = ['true']
disabled = false

[custom.kakcursor]
description = 'The current Kakoune cursor position'
format = '[%val{cursor_line}:%val{cursor_char_column}]($style)'
style = 'fg:white'
when = ''
shell = ['true']
disabled = false

[custom.kakmode]
description = 'The current Kakoune mode'
format = ' {{mode_info}}'
when = ''
shell = ['true']
disabled = false

[custom.kakcontext]
description = 'The current Kakoune context'
format = ' {{context_info}}'
when = ''
shell = ['true']
disabled = false

[custom.kakfiletype]
description = 'The current buffer filetype'
format = '\[%opt{filetype}\] '
when = ''
shell = ['true']
disabled = false

[custom.kakposition]
description = 'Relative position of the cursor inside the buffer'
format = '[  $output]($style)'
style = 'bright-white'
command = 'echo -n $(($kak_cursor_line * 100 / $kak_buf_line_count))%'
when = '[ -n "$kak_cursor_line" ]'
shell = ['sh']
disabled = false

[custom.kaktime]
description = "Alternate time segment using kakoune evaluation"
format = "[]($style)[  %sh{date +%T} ]($style)"
style = "fg:black bg:bright-green"
when = ''
shell = ['true']
disabled = false

[custom.kaklsp_err]
description = "Show errors number from kak-lsp if any"
format = "[  %opt{lsp_diagnostic_error_count}]($style)"
style = "red bold"
when = '[ -n "$kak_opt_lsp_diagnostic_error_count" -a "$kak_opt_lsp_diagnostic_error_count" -ne 0 ]'
shell = ['sh']
disabled = false

[custom.kaklsp_warn]
description = "Show warnings number from kak-lsp if any"
format = "[  %opt{lsp_diagnostic_warning_count}]($style)"
style = "yellow bold"
when = '[ -n "$kak_opt_lsp_diagnostic_warning_count" -a "$kak_opt_lsp_diagnostic_warning_count" -ne 0 ]'
shell = ['sh']
disabled = false

Tips

To check if your modeline is not overloaded.

kak_config="~/.config/kak" kakship timings

To check the settings with all modules default values

kak_config="~/.config/kak" kakship print-config

To debug the prompt as set under kakoune

kak_config="~/.config/kak" kakship prompt

References

powerline.kak is another excellent kakoune plugin from Andrey Listopadov devoted to modeline which relies merely on kakscript, has themes and even has an API for defining new plugins.