FAQ¶

Rosight says "ROS 2 unavailable" but I'm in a sourced terminal¶

Confirm python3 -c 'import rclpy' works in the same terminal. If rosight was installed in a different virtualenv than the one your shell is using now, source the right venv first. With Ubuntu 22/24, prefer:

python3 -m venv --system-site-packages ~/.venvs/rosight
source ~/.venvs/rosight/bin/activate
pip install rosight

so the system rclpy remains visible inside the venv.

Why not use rqt / plotjuggler / rviz?¶

Those are great GUI tools. Rosight is the keyboard-driven equivalent — runs on headless robots, over SSH, in tmux, on a phone via Termius.

Yes — rosight auto-negotiates QoS based on the publisher endpoints, so BEST_EFFORT topics (the typical sensor profile) are received correctly without manual configuration. If you want to force a specific profile, use --config and set [ros] qos_profile.

Plot panel always says "no series — press [p] in the message tree to add a field"¶

That hint is correct behaviour: the Plot tab plots specific numeric fields, not whole topics. A nav_msgs/Odometry message has dozens of fields — the app doesn't guess. Full workflow:

Messages tab — cursor over a topic with a non-zero Pub count.
Enter → subscribe. Focus moves to the message tree on the right.
Use arrow keys / Space to drill into sub-messages (pose → position → x).
With the cursor on a numeric leaf (int / float; not string / array / sub-message), press p. The series is added and the Plot tab opens.

If p does nothing on a leaf, check that the field is numeric — a toast will tell you field <path> is not numeric — skipped for the wrong kind.

I can't copy text out of the app — Ctrl+C just quits¶

Two things going on:

Ctrl+C is bound to quit in Rosight (lazygit-style). Don't use it for copy.
Textual captures the mouse, so a normal drag doesn't reach your terminal's selection. Hold your terminal's bypass modifier while dragging:
GNOME Terminal / Konsole / xterm / WSL / Windows Terminal → Shift
macOS Terminal.app / iTerm2 → Option / Alt
tmux → Prefix [ (copy-mode), then v / y

The theme I picked from `Ctrl+P` disappears on restart¶

Rosight persists your theme choice in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rosight/state.toml. If that file isn't being written:

Check that ~/.config/rosight/ is writable.
Check the log (--log-file /tmp/rosight.log --log-level DEBUG) for could not persist theme.

Delete the state file to fall back to the built-in default.

How do I switch ROS_DOMAIN_ID without restarting?¶

Press : to open the command palette and type:

domain 5

rclpy is reinitialised on the new domain; all active subscriptions are dropped (the rclpy context owns them). The status bar's DOMAIN_ID= field updates immediately to show the live value.

Can I record a bag of just selected topics?¶

Yes. Open the Bags panel (8), set the args field to the topics you want (e.g. /odom /scan), and press R. Recording continues until you press R again, even if you exit the TUI.

How do I file a bug?¶

Open an issue on GitHub with:

distro and Python version
the contents of --log-file (run with --log-level DEBUG)
a reproducer if possible

Does it work on macOS / Windows?¶

The TUI portion runs anywhere Textual runs. The ROS-aware features require rclpy, which is best-supported on Linux. macOS support depends on whether you can install rclpy locally. Windows requires a ROS-on-Windows distro and isn't actively tested.

How is this different from `ros2 topic echo`?¶

echo dumps raw messages to a terminal. Rosight adds discovery, filter, hz/bw, multi-topic subscription with auto-QoS, message-tree navigation and live plotting in one tool. For one-off taps echo is still faster.