How can I use "emacsclient -t" as EDITOR for xplr?

[oscarvarto]

I can use nvim as EDITOR, as well as "emacsclient -c" (it opens a GUI window). But I'd like to use the emacsclient in a terminal (-t option). However, if I execute something like (using fish shell):

EDITOR="emacsclient -t" xplr

then I get the following error in xplr:

01:56:02|ERROR) process exited with code exit status: 1 

It is possible if I use emacs -nw as EDITOR, but it has the disadvantage of starting up another instance of emacs with the complete configuration (it takes time).
My last resort would be to fall back to nvim, but I prefer emacs.

[oscarvarto]

If I open xplr shell (:!) and then try to execute emacsclient -t I get the following (short) error message:

*ERROR*: Could not open file: /dev/tty

The same error occurs if I am in Wayland or X11. I tried in different terminals: wezterm, kitty, alacritty. Same error.

[sayanarijit]

Hi, sorry, I don't have much experience with emacs. So I couldn't find much help. Maybe someone from the emacs community can suggest something.

[oscarvarto]

@sayanarijit The above was tried in Arch Linux variant CachyOS. However, I confirm this also happens in Mac OS (Sonoma 14.1).

[oscarvarto]

@sayanarijit Is there a way to execute xplr with a "debug" flag? Are there any logs saved somewhere while executing xplr?

[sayanarijit]

Not in the binary version. You may need to build from source. The process is documented.

[sayanarijit]

Hi... Is this still an issue?

[LyxHuston]

Hi, I did a bit more looking into this, the reason why this is the case is because xplr doesn't emulate a tty when it runs a sub-shell or a bash command. You can get around this by running screen <command> to emulate a tty.

Edit: you can also use scroll like scroll -- emacsclient -t <args> (https://tools.suckless.org/scroll/). Both of these are a bit extra for a tty, but... hey. They work, and scroll keeps the abilities for colors and such from the running terminal.