Save & Restore color map with session state so customized palettes are properly preserved on restart.

When session restoration is enabled, iTerm2 does not save colors set by the shell. More specifically, I'm using https://github.com/chriskempson/base16-shell to set my shell colors. It would be neat if this was saved between sessions.

(Or if there's an alternative way to achieve these customizations, I'd be happy to use that as well)

Works for me with the beta version. I guess you must be using 2.1?

Sorry, forgot to mention it. I'm on Build 2.9.20160318-nightly.

I believe I'm having the same issue. I have set a color preset (CMD-i -> colors -> Load Preset), colors look fine in my current terminal. Then went to the General tab and did "Copy current settings to selected Profile" while the Default profile was selected. Upon starting a new terminal or opening a new tab, colors are not applied.

In a new tab, if I simply open preferences and click "Use selected profile" while the Default profile is selected, colors are applied as expected.

It's as if iTerm would not apply colors properly when a profile is loaded by iTerm itself but when I load it manually it's fine.

Even if I do "Open new tab with current profile" the new tab does not load the color preset properly. If I re-apply the profile manually it's OK.

@eproxus Here are the steps I took to reproduce:

1. Start with a default config by running defaults delete com.googlecode.iterm from Terminal while iTerm2 isn't running
2. git clone https://github.com/chriskempson/base16-shell.git
3. base16-shell/base16-colors.light.sh (background turns white now)
4. Cmd-Q to quit iTerm2
5. Relaunch iTerm2

When it comes back, the window's contents are restored (because I have System Prefs > General > Close windows when quitting an app turned off) and the background is white.

@jfchevrette it sounds like you're doing it right, would you mind sending a screencast? Maybe there's some subtlety I'm missing in the description. When I follow these steps it works for me.

Status changed to closed

@gnachman Following your instructions (using com.googlecode.iterm2 instead) seems to have fixed it. Colors are now restored correctly.

Let me know if it comes back, I'd like to know what your config looks like when it's broken.

Ok, it seems this issue is back with 3.0.12. Not sure how to dump the current config...

Status changed to reopened

Preferences: com.googlecode.iterm2.plist

Removing that fixed the issue, however moving it back again does not restore the old preferences :-(

You can restore your old prefs by going to Prefs > General and turn on Load preferences from a custom folder or URL. Set the URL to https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/uploads/3c7b4633d4c406a799fd26ff6fb8dc81/com.googlecode.iterm2.plist. Relaunch iTerm2 and your settings will be restored to what you uploaded. You can then uncheck Load preferences from a custom folder or URL and they will remain.

One possibility is that the app never gets a chance to save its window state unless another app becomes active (e.g., by pressing cmd-tab) after changing the colors. This is a silly limitation of the OS. Is it possible that this is the issue?

So it turns out that the script mentioned above, is set in my .zshrcto execute upon starting a shell. Commenting this out, starting a new shell, running the script manually to set the colors (which works), then quitting and restoring iTerm, does not keep the colors. Note though, that I get the "Session Restored" message and my sessions are in the right directories.

This is a good observation. We do not save and restore the full color map with window state, but we should since the goal is to preserve your state as completely as reasonably possible.

Milestone changed to %Review for next version

Changed title: Customized colors set by shell not saved between sessions → Save & Restore color map with session state so customized palettes are properly preserved on restart.

Glad you found the cause! Looking forward to 3.2