Layouts not loading from default location on MacOS

[Amparose]

Basic information

zellij --version: 0.35.1
stty size: 26 117
uname -av: Darwin 22.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.3.0: Mon Jan 30 20:38:37 PST 2023; root:xnu-8792.81.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 arm64

List of programs you interact with as, PROGRAM --version: output cropped meaningful, for example:
alacritty --version: alacritty 0.11.0 (8dbaa0b)

Further information
I have config loading from ~/.config/zellij/ and a theme loading from ~/.config/zellij/themes but when I create a layout in ~/.config/zellij/layouts I have to run zellij -l ~/.config/zellij/layouts/my-layout.kdl instead of just zellij -l my-layout.kdl as described in docs.

Error is IoError: No such file or directory (os error 2), File: my-layout.kdl

Not sure if I am doing something wrong or if this is a bug for MacOS.

[jaeheonji]

Hi, @Amparose!

Could you try to load layout with only file name? like this zellij -l my-layout.
As far as I know, by appending an extension, it looks for files relative to the current directory.

[Amparose]

Hi @jaeheonji

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I tried that but attempted again just now in case and still get the IoError.

[jaeheonji]

@Amparose I see. then, could you share your zellij setup --check?

Example:

[Version]: "0.35.2"
[CONFIG DIR]: "/Users/meow/.config/zellij"
[CONFIG FILE]: "/Users/meow/.config/zellij/config.kdl"
[CONFIG FILE]: Well defined.
[DATA DIR]: "/Users/meow/Library/Application Support/org.Zellij-Contributors.Zellij"
[PLUGIN DIR]: "/Users/meow/Library/Application Support/org.Zellij-Contributors.Zellij/plugins"
 Builtin, default plugins will not be loaded from disk.
 Create a custom layout if you require this behavior.
[LAYOUT DIR]: "/Users/meow/.config/zellij/layouts"
[SYSTEM DATA DIR]: "/usr/share/zellij"
[ARROW SEPARATOR]: 
 Is the [ARROW_SEPARATOR] displayed correctly?
 If not you may want to either start zellij with a compatible mode: 'zellij options --simplified-ui true'
 Or check the font that is in use:
 https://zellij.dev/documentation/compatibility.html#the-status-bar-fonts-dont-render-correctly
[MOUSE INTERACTION]:
 Can be temporarily disabled through pressing the [SHIFT] key.
 If that doesn't fix any issues consider to disable the mouse handling of zellij: 'zellij options --disable-mouse-mode'
[DEFAULT EDITOR]: hx
[FEATURES]: []
[DOCUMENTATION]: zellij.dev/documentation

[Amparose]

Sure:

❯ zellij setup --check
[Version]: "0.35.2"
[CONFIG DIR]: "/Users/me/.config/zellij"
[CONFIG FILE]: "/Users/me/.config/zellij/config.kdl"
[CONFIG FILE]: Well defined.
[DATA DIR]: "/Users/me/Library/Application Support/org.Zellij-Contributors.Zellij"
[PLUGIN DIR]: "/Users/me/Library/Application Support/org.Zellij-Contributors.Zellij/plugins"
 Builtin, default plugins will not be loaded from disk.
 Create a custom layout if you require this behavior.
[LAYOUT DIR]: "~/.config/zellij/layouts"
[SYSTEM DATA DIR]: "/usr/share/zellij"
[ARROW SEPARATOR]: 
 Is the [ARROW_SEPARATOR] displayed correctly?
 If not you may want to either start zellij with a compatible mode: 'zellij options --simplified-ui true'
 Or check the font that is in use:
 https://zellij.dev/documentation/compatibility.html#the-status-bar-fonts-dont-render-correctly
[MOUSE INTERACTION]:
 Can be temporarily disabled through pressing the [SHIFT] key.
 If that doesn't fix any issues consider to disable the mouse handling of zellij: 'zellij options --disable-mouse-mode'
[DEFAULT EDITOR]: hx
[FEATURES]: []
[DOCUMENTATION]: zellij.dev/documentation

[andradei]

Have the same issue, having to pass the full path of the layout if I want to use it.

Using Wezterm and Ubuntu on WLS2

[andradei]

@Amparose For me, this was related to #1894
Which meant I had to remove layouts_dir and themes_dir from ~/.config/zellij/config.kdl and let it use the default directories, which are

• ~/.config/zellij/layouts
• ~/.config/zellij/themes

Then zellij --layouts my_layout worked.

Note: it might also work to set absolute paths on layouts_dir and themes_dir, but I stopped when I got it working doing the above explanation.

[Amparose]

@andradei looks like you got it: using the full non-tilde path works for me.

[sequoia42]

Having messed around with this for a bit, after having encountered the issue myself, paths in the config don't support path expansion. So, zellij looks for the literal ~ directory and finds nothing, correctly outputting an IoError.
It's probably worth mentioning that it needs to be an absolute path in the tutorials/docs.