I'm confused about how to edit layouts.

[zMenta]

For my use case I just wanted a the tab function for zellij, since I just discovered this tool and I did never used tmux or other similar tools. So I just wanted to have a clean zellij interface.

With the default layout default_layout "default" , I like that the tab bar is shown on the top of the screen, like so:

But I like the feel of the default_layout "compact" , but wanted the tab bar on the top of the screen instead of the bottom.

How can I achieve this?

[Lockszmith-GH]

Did you review the (excellent) documentation about Creating a Layout?

The first thing it shows you is how to actually see the default layout:

$ zellij setup --dump-layout default > /tmp/my-quickstart-layout-file.kdl

It also has this section

[Lockszmith-GH]

Currently, the output of:

zellij setup --dump-layout default

is:

layout {
    pane size=1 borderless=true {
        plugin location="zellij:tab-bar"
    }
    pane
    pane size=2 borderless=true {
        plugin location="zellij:status-bar"
    }
}

[zMenta]

Yes, but I'm still finding a bit confusing how to do it. But after trying to mess around again because of your reply, it made a little more sense to me.

Correct if I'm wrong. I understood that to create a layout you need to create a layouts directory containing layouts. Just like the default layout you replied.

So inside, zellij .config directory I created a layouts directory. Create a compact-top.kdl file inside it.

On the zellij config file I added layout_dir "~/.config/zellij/layouts" and default_layout "compact-top"

But when trying to load the layout I receive the following error:
IoError: The layout was not found, File: compact-top

[zMenta]

Reading further the documentation I found out that zellij searches for the directory /config/layouts by default. So just needed to create the layouts directory without changing the default_layout variable.

Just created my layout under the layouts directory and used the file name in the config file. Now it works as I expected :)