Split handle idea - delay / disable handle display

[edrozenberg]

Ghostty 6a1a4ee b-13689
MacOS Sequoia the Great (not Liquid Ass the Uber Ugly)

The new split reorg feature is great (reorg splits by dragging a handle).

A couple of ideas related to this:

• Configurable delay (seconds or ms) for showing split handles
• Configurable disable of split handles

Motivation: the split handles often appear while changing active split by moving the mouse pointer between splits.

Would be nice to be able to configure a delay or disable of the split handles such that in normal usage of changing split focus via mouse pointer movement, the handles don't unintentionally appear while moving the mouse.

Definitely not the most important feature :), just a nice-to-have to not see the split handles unless specifically intended.

[thestr4ng3r]

Another important motivation: With the handles it is now hard or impossible (depending on font size) to click or select text on the topmost line of a split by mouse.

Personally I find delays in UI disruptive, but if it's configurable I wouldn't mind of course.
Another idea would be to make the handles only active if a key is pressed (Command/Alt/Shift/...). If that is the case though it might be worth considering making the entire split draggable when that key is pressed.

[martinemde]

I proposed #10280 as a solution to this. It addresses tho overlay problem by making a small "header" area for the grab bar that can't overlay the text. It addresses the desire to not have it visible all the time by only showing it during active mouse movement and only on the pane you're hovering on, hiding when you type.

I mentioned also in #10553 that I did a version that shows on command and I find it very disruptive, since you press command a lot and it causes this gray bar to show on all the surfaces. I don't recommend it unless there's some other change to the style (like if you combined my PR #10280 with holding command to make it visible)

[thestr4ng3r]

I mentioned also in #10553 that I did a version that shows on command and I find it very disruptive, since you press command a lot and it causes this gray bar to show on all the surfaces.

Good point. Though it could also be an option to only show the handle if it is hovered and a modifier is pressed. In this case it would be hard to discover for new users, but the default could be what exists right now (hover only) and this could be configurable.

[fooness]

I like this idea (even though I’d be happy about an option to disable the handler entirely). Some Linux systems with desktop environments (GNOME, KDE, etc.) and also some window managers (bspwm, dwm, i3, etc.) running on X11 and Wayland allow moving windows by pressing a modifier key like alt or ctrl, mouse click and drag. macOS supports this feature, too, i.e. moving windows by pressing cmd+ctrl, mouse click and drag, once manually enabled via defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool true.

[htahboub]

Agreed that this would be great to have. Having a way to disable the handle at the very least seems pretty essential, but certainly not the biggest impediment or priority.

[fooness]

I’d also be very happy if the grab handle could be entirely disabled (and/or only be shown after a short delay of hovering over the potential handle position). I appreciate the feature having been added — these feature additions are one part of Ghostty being superb — but I’d love it to be an option, which is another one of Ghostty strengths.

[edrozenberg]

I'm not adding a lot new here but from past comments and ideas from others all these would be nice to have eventually with 1 & 2 being of most interest for me in the shorter term -

1. Option to fully disable split re-org via option - ensures 0% chance of being interrupted/bothered by the reorg UI in any scenario
2. Option for handles to be invisible rather than greyed out, until activated via mouseover or keyboard key/combo + mouseover
3. Option for enabled but invisible reorg UI - the handle is there and always active but invisible, mouseover changes the mouse pointer to a grab hand as it does now. For users who already know how to use the feature and don't need/want a visual hint/indicator
4. Menubar item/shortcut to show/hide (or enable/disable) re-org UI, similar to menubar options to show/hide toolbars in various other apps

[00-kat]

xref #11300 and https://discord.com/channels/1005603569187160125/1480704960592347238/1480771406835744840¹.

Footnotes

1. You need to join the Ghostty Discord server to access this link. ↩

[henrikruscon]

Would definitely appreciate the addition of this being optional (as in being able to hide it completely).

[abdarker]

agreed. this should not even exist

[00-kat]

Bold claim, as there's no other way to move splits. A feature that was far more requested.

[skwee357]

I agree with @henrikruscon . I use tmux, and don't care for built-in terminal split/tab management, so would be nice to turn this off.

[mikerobe]

Yes +100

I use tmux. For my use case, this feature is quite a nuisance. I have the titlebar disabled and move the window around by just dragging the top (you get a resize cursor and if you move horizontally it will start moving the window instead). Now with this three dot stuff, I get a hand cursor and instead of moving the window it starts dragging around this pane, which I have no use for since I'm using tmux. And there's no way to disable it. Craziness.

[CodeJoule]

It is 4 months later. Isn't this an easy decision? Not everyone uses GUI controls. I'd really like to completely disable/hide this handle. It gets in the way when I'm trying to click tabs near the top-center of the screen in Herdr.

[ooolzhas]

Another case for a config option to fully disable the handle: it conflicts with resizing splits by mouse on macOS. When I go to drag a divider near the top of a pane, I often grab the move handle instead and start rearranging the split rather than resizing it.

I never rearrange splits by dragging (keyboard resize_split / equalize_splits cover my needs), so something like macos-split-drag-handle = false (or split-drag = false) would remove the conflict entirely.

Ghostty 1.3.1 (stable), macOS 27.0.

[aredmondd]

i've added a vouch request to see if i can add a disable flag in the config file to hide this functionality completely

#14755

[aredmondd]

looks like this was implemented in August, to be released with v1.4.0, and is currently working on the tip version. #13709

[aredmondd]

for anyone still looking for an answer:
https://ghostty.org/docs/install/release-notes/1-4-0#split-drag-and-drop-(gtk)