Feature suggestion: persistent tab numbers, and goto_tab opens new tab mapped to the bind if not already open

[stfwn]

Hey, thanks for making Ghostty! It's very fast and easy to configure :)

Part 1: persistent tab numbers

My main feature suggestion, inspired by i3, is to have optional persistent tab numbers. This means the tab numbers are not updated after they are opened. E.g.:

Default behaviour:

1. You have three tabs open: tab 1, tab 2 and tab 3.
2. You close tab 2.
3. Tab 3 is renamed to tab 2. You now have two tabs: tab 1 and tab 2 (previously tab 3).

With this suggested setting:

persistent_tab_numbers = true

The new behaviour would be:

1. You have three tabs open: tab 1, tab 2 and tab 3.
2. You close tab 2.
3. Tab 3 is not renamed to tab 2. You now have two tabs: tab 1 and tab 3.

Why?

This enables you to build a mental model of where your shell sessions are. For example, you might have a hot reloading debug server process running on tab 3 that you check every once in a while to inspect internal errors while you work on the code in tab 1 and read documentation in tab 2. If you close tab 2, your server process is moved to tab 2, and you'll have a mental cache miss when you next go to tab 3 to inspect it. This takes you out of the flow. With this option enabled, you can open and close any tab, and your server process will always be on tab 3.

Part 2: goto_tab opens new tab

A natural second feature suggestion following the above, again inspired by i3, is for goto_tab to open a new tab mapped to the bind if it is not already open. E.g.:

persistent_tab_numbers = true
keybind = "cmd+1=goto_tab:1"
keybind = "cmd+2=goto_tab:2"
keybind = "cmd+3=goto_tab:3"
keybind = "cmd+4=goto_tab:4"
keybind = "cmd+5=goto_tab:5"
keybind = "cmd+6=goto_tab:6"

If you only have tab 1 open and you use cmd+6, it would open a new tab mapped to cmd+6. This again enables you to reuse a mental map of where terminals running a certain type of task are. For example, you might always have a terminal running a hot reloading debug server on tab 6, and with this change you can always simply open a terminal at this location and start this process without manually opening the scaffolding tabs 1-5.