Window Positioning: How to make Kitty open in the center of the screen

[weiameili]

Hi, I want kitty to open in the center of the screen, instead of a corner. How would I achieve the desired effect?

The placement_strategy config option does not have any effect and when opening kitty from the terminal I get:
[081 17:56:02.563230] Ignoring unknown config key: placement_strategy

[kovidgoyal]

OS Window positioning is done my window managers, not applications. placement_strategy is about how to position the extra space inside a kitty window ehn the window size is not a multiple of the cell size.

[weiameili]

Hi, I am using Deepin 20 with the default DE, so I don't really have the option to specify where a new kitty window opens through my WM. Doesn't kitty have an option to control window position like other terminals, say URxvt.

[kovidgoyal]

No, it doesnt. Such an option wouldnt work on many window managers such as tiling ones, or any window manager at all in wayland where applications are not allowed to set window position at all.

[BMJ-pdx]

But roxterm, mate-terminal, gnome-terminal and xterm can all specify a preferred (or suggested) geometry (via command-line option) that can optionally include a position. (Granted, the CLI geometry options may be X11-specific.)
I find this vital -- when I log in a script starts about a dozen terms, typically two per (MATE) workspace, non-overlapping, left and right. Multiple kitty windows don't provide the same functionality (e.g. being able to minimize one of a pair of term/OS windows, to expose more desktop).

[deccer]

I know this is an old issue. But it also kind of annoys me when windows open at random locations on non titling window managers, no matter what OS.

Would it be possible to get such an option though. I personally don't care about wayland enough yet either. perhaps an x11/winapi related override, similar to the OS-specific settings?

Anywho. Thank you for kitty :)

[Mark3xtrm]

So no solution on this? As mentioned by @BMJ-pdx, other terminals like gnome-terminal (default terminal in Linux Mint Cinnamon) can do this, so maybe it's technically possible?

[kovidgoyal]

On X11 without a tiling window manager ONLY.

[Neurognostic]

If your window manager does not provide facilities for window rules. You could wrap launching kitty with a shell script and use a tool like xdotool to move it's window to a specified position as soon as it is launched.

[CartConnoisseur]

On X11 without a tiling window manager ONLY.

so, "ONLY" the vast majority of desktop linux users?

[Mark3xtrm]

I'm currently using devilspie2 to achieve this

[mxz7]

i'm using macos without a special window manager and it opens seemingly in a random place every time, i have to drag it to the center.

[JulioXoX]

Looking for solution too.

[tigger04]

The trouble is that Kitty does not behave on the MacOS windowing system in the way that other apps do, and I'm not entirely sure why.

I use BetterTouchTool to manage my windowing on MacOS, and Kitty is the only application that does not respond to instructions to move or to resize. I also tried scripting it with Hammerspoon - Kitty behaves in unexpected ways (it will sometimes but not always move the window, and never resizes it).

I had been using Kitty for a number of years - and managing its windows with BTT and Hammerspoon without any problems.
One day, I don't recall exactly which release, it stopped behaving.
At the time I was under a project deadline, so did not have much time to spend on figuring it out or logging an issue. I switched to using iTerm and Alacritty for the sake of expediency.

Every now and then though I give Kitty another try - I do miss this really fantastic terminal emulator, but its inability to play nice on the MacOS windowing system is unfortunately a deal breaker for me.