support -e command line flag as an alternative to start

[ExpandingMan]

Admittedly wezterm's CLI wezterm start -- args is undoubtedly better than using a flag like -e, however tons of linux stuff assumes that any terminal will have the -e flag. Examples include rofi, rifle and whatever the hell happens when you run *.desktop files (which is not a behavior that's exclusive to desktop environments as other programs can try to run these).

It would therefore be really nice if in addition to the current behavior, wezterm supported a -e flag as it would greatly simplify the usage of wezterm as a default terminal.

[vimpostor]

Have you seen #2670? Support for -e is already implemented, i.e. you can use wezterm start -e bash.

Note that right now you still have to specify the start in wezterm start, i.e. wezterm -e bash does not work. Given that wezterm defaults to wezterm start it might make sense to accept just wezterm -e command as well.
Is this what you want or is #2670 enough for you?

Also see #2622

[ExpandingMan]

Thanks, I was not aware of that. Indeed, I don't feel that really solves the problem, even wezterm start -e will require special handling in many contexts. It would make things far simpler to accept wezterm -e.

[vimpostor]

even `wezterm start -e` will require special handling in many contexts.

If your third-party application parses the desktop file correctly, it will work automatically, so unless they are buggy, usually no special handling is required. I don't have any strong opinion against adding support for `wezterm -e` though. So if @wez doesn't mind it either, I might send in a patch later.

[ExpandingMan]

Yes, wezterm start -e does mostly fix this issue, but, at least for me personally, it's still kind of annoying. If, for example, you expect to just set the terminal in some environment variable, wezterm now needs special handling compared to every other terminal. This is because, though simply setting wezterm start works fine to directly launch terminal applications, for wezterm (and only for wezterm) the command for starting a terminal application is different than starting the terminal itself.

[wez]

@vimpostor if you can find a way to treat -e as an alias for start in clap, that feels conceptually clean.
I have my doubts that it will be that clean and simple though!

[Abdiramen]

@wez if alias is an acceptable solution to this problem is there any issue with just slapping #[command(alias = "-e")] above:

wezterm/wezterm-gui-subcommands/src/lib.rs

Line 149 in 1fad25e

pub struct StartCommand {

[wez]

I don't know; I haven't tried it, and it's not high on my list of things to try. If it works, then that would be good. I have my doubts about it, as argument parsing typically uses - to indicate an argument rather than a subcommand.

[Abdiramen]

I can try it out! If it works I'll send out a PR.

[ExpandingMan]

Thanks all!

[github-actions]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues. If you have found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue and complete the issue template so we can capture all the details necessary to investigate further.