Exiting fzf with Chafa image preview doesn't clear Kitty images

[onaforeignshore]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install https://github.com/junegunn/fzf (I used brew install fzf).
2. Configure FZF to use the supplied fzf-preview.sh file.

export FZF_CTRL_T_OPTS="--preview '/opt/homebrew/bin/fzf-preview.sh {}'"

3. Open the terminal in a folder with images and press Ctrl-T.
4. Press Esc to exit FZF.

Expected output:
After exiting, the terminal background clears.

Screen.Recording.2024-12-21.at.18.26.00.mov

Example output in iTerm

Actual output:
After exiting, the image remains until you do a clear command. Subsequent terminal commands have the text hidden behind the image.

Screen.Recording.2024-12-21.at.18.39.39.mov

Example output in ghostty

Configuration:

macOS Sequoia 15.2 (24C101)

❯ ghostty --version
Ghostty 0.1.0-main+05fd5e0c

Version
  - version: 0.1.0-main+05fd5e0c
  - channel: tip
Build Config
  - Zig version: 0.13.0
  - build mode : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime: apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine: font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer   : renderer.Metal
  - libxev     : main.Backend.kqueue

[mitchellh]

@rockorager Do you happen to know about this one? If not, no worries just wanted to quickly check.

[rockorager]

I looked at the script and they use a different command on kitty. I'd be curious if this happens on wezterm also. But we'd need to see if it's using sixel or kitty on wezterm. It could be an issue with the script never deleting the image, and until ghostty there has never been another terminal implementing kitty graphics but not sixels.

[mitchellh]

Got it. I'm going to convert to Q&A for now then because this might be an upstream issue. If we determine its a VT issue I'll spin out a focused bug issue for that for us.

[infused-kim]

I am experiencing the same issue with fzf and chafa v1.14.5 (latest) as the preview tool on macOS Sonoma 14.5.

Chafa has a -f option to select the format:

  -f, --format=FORMAT  Set output format; one of [iterm, kitty, sixels,
                     symbols]. Iterm, kitty and sixels yield much higher
                     quality but enjoy limited support. Symbols mode yields
                     beautiful character art.

But only kitty and symbols output anything. The rest show no image, but also no errors.

The -f symbols option clears the previous image when I switch between fzf results, but is of course of very low quality.

[rhodes-b]

Ghostty doesnt support iterm image protocol or sixels, so those wont work. It would be expected that kitty and symbols work as symbols just uses unicode / ascii characters with color codes and ghostty supports kitty image protocol