Targeted Input

iTerm2 has a “broadcast input” feature that lets you send keyboard input to multiple sessions. The purpose of this script is to send a different string to each session to which input is broadcast.

This script demonstrates a few things:

• Running a web server in the script process

• Registering a custom toolbelt tool

• Using broadcast domains

• Scripts with external dependencies

The web server provides the user interface that allows you to enter the text to send to each session. The web page is rendered in a custom toolbelt tool the user can choose to enable.

Broadcast domains are the abstraction that describes how keyboard input is broadcast. Any keypress in a session belonging to a particular broadcast domain goes to all sessions in that domain. A broadcast domain is a collection of sessions, and all broadcast domains are disjoint.

This script depends on the aiohttp package. To install it, you must create this script as a “full environment” script. When you select the New Python Script menu item, choose Full Environment at the first prompt. After it is created, run the following command (supposing you named it TargetedInput; if it has a different name, modify the path below appropriately):

~/Library/ApplicationSupport/iTerm2/Scripts/TargetedInput/iterm2env/versions/*/bin/pip3 install aiohttp

Then, replace targeted_input.py with:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# NOTE: This script depends on aiohttp.
import aiohttp
import asyncio
import iterm2
from aiohttp import web

async def main(connection):
    app = await iterm2.async_get_app(connection)

    async def send_html(txt, request):
        binary = txt.encode('utf8')
        resp = web.StreamResponse()
        resp.content_length = len(binary)
        resp.content_type = 'text/html'
        await resp.prepare(request)
        await resp.write(binary)
        return resp

    def html_for_domain(domain):
        txt = '<hr/><form action="/send" method="POST">'
        n = 0
        for session in domain.sessions:
            txt += '{}: <input name="{}" type="text" value="Value to send to session {}" /><br/>'.format(n, session.session_id, n)
            n += 1
        txt += '<input type="Submit"></form>'
        return txt

    async def main_page(request):
        txt = '<a href="/">Refresh</a><br/>'
        if not app.broadcast_domains:
            txt += "Turn on broadcast input and click refresh"
        for domain in app.broadcast_domains:
            txt += html_for_domain(domain)
        return await send_html(txt, request)

    async def send(request):
        reader = await request.post()
        for session_id in reader.keys():
            value = reader[session_id]
            session = app.get_session_by_id(session_id)
            if session:
                await session.async_send_text(value, suppress_broadcast=True)
        return await main_page(request)

    def init():
        webapp = web.Application()
        webapp.router.add_get('/', main_page)
        return webapp

    # Set up a web server on port 9999. The web pages give the script a user interface.
    webapp = web.Application()
    webapp.router.add_get('/', main_page)
    webapp.router.add_post('/send', send)
    runner = web.AppRunner(webapp)
    await runner.setup()
    site = web.TCPSite(runner, 'localhost', 9999)
    await site.start()

    # Register a custom toolbelt tool that shows the web pages served by the server in this script.
    await iterm2.tool.async_register_web_view_tool(connection, "Targeted Input", "com.iterm2.example.targeted-input", False, "http://localhost:9999/")

iterm2.run_forever(main)

Download

Run the script and then open the “Targeted Input” tool. It will appear in the Toolbelt menu. Turn on broadcast input on a few sessions and hit the Refresh link. Then you can enter a value for each session and press Submit to see it in action.