add focus_tab to restore tab focus by default - #9163

The reason it was done that way was to preserve the history. If you want to preserve visual position instead then the activity history gets lost. I dont know if that's a worthwhile tradeoff, it should probably be an option for save_as_session. Or better would be to preserve both, possibly by some new syntax in the session file, say some JSON data for the new_tab command similar to how it is done for restoring window layout data.

The reason it was done that way was to preserve the history. If you want to preserve visual position instead then the activity history gets lost. I dont know if that's a worthwhile tradeoff, it should probably be an option for save_as_session. Or better would be to preserve both, possibly by some new syntax in the session file, say some JSON data for the new_tab command similar to how it is done for restoring window layout data.

Thanks for the explanation, I have suspected it was done for a reason.

By "history" do you mean the order the tabs are created? I don't think they (visual order & history) are inclusive of one the other, i.e. not possible to preserve both.

I'm quite certain my workflow is different than your workflow at this point. So I'll explain mine:

1. in the beginning, I have no sessions
2. I open a kitty os window
3. I add some tabs then some windows
4. I reorder them because related windows I put them together for visual cue to jump with cmd+{1-9}
5. I save session and give it a name
6. I close it for forget about it
7. I restore / switch it using fuzzy find

IIUC, step 4 is what you didn't expect?

I'm happy with just adding another option. Or just keep it as is, a custom kitty is also straightforward. Downside is relying on some internal API. I'm mostly fine with it. When I upgrade, I expect some part to be broken and most of the time, they're easy fixes.

Just had a look at the active_tab_history related code. It's for jumping back in tab history right? e.g. go to n'th last tab?

Yes, it is for jumping back.

Yes, it is for jumping back.

We probably can't use the order of serialisation for both tab history and visual history. I see two options:

1. have sequence of tabs as one and add tab_history or visual_order command to record
2. have both tab_history [idx, ...] and visual_order ...] command