Make tmux pretty and usable (2024)

my favorite thing to do with tmux is using a sessionizer script[0] (credit for the idea/original implementation goes to ThePrimeagen). allows for fzf-ing my projects and creating a separate session for each one. especially handy for bouncing around when working on features/fixes that span multiple repos

for (neo)vim users, flattening vim splits and tmux panes into the same level for switching with ctrl+hjkl is handy too

[0](https://github.com/tolly-xyz/dotfiles/blob/main/.local%2Fbin...)

> Published on Aug 17, 2015 > Last updated on Oct 2, 2024

Why now?

At least some of the links in it don't mention plugins (which luckily some comments here do). Beside tmux-continuum and tmux-sensible, I'd recommend jaclu/tmux-menus.

I'm perfectly happy with tmux the way it is, but upvoting this one because it's a decent overview of what to modify to make tmux more better if you don't like its defaults.

I don't see what's awkward about C-b and %.

No mention of replacing the weird-ass emacs thing on [ with proper vim bindings?

I love tmux but one thing which really annoys me is the fact that I cannot use the mouse wheel or the scroll back to see the previous content. I know there are shortcuts to go forward and back but I always forget them and they are not easily accessible on my keyboard and cumbersome.

Another easy to use option is using byobu (https://github.com/dustinkirkland/byobu).

Try byobu

I almost never bother theming things on my computer; I usually don't really care about how things look and I can't be bothered with it.

I have two exceptions to this: NeoVim and tmux.

tmux in particular looks very ugly out of the box; I'm not sure why they decided to have a bright green bar on the bottom (presumably to be high-contrast in a low color terminal), but I really hate staring at it all day (since I kind of live in tmux most of the day on both my work and personal computer). I have it set as close as I can to the Wombat color scheme that's built into emacs (and which can be easily added to Vim), because I personally have always felt that that was the most pleasant theme to stare at for long periods of time.

Another thing I do is set the prefix key to backtick. I have no idea why I started doing this, but at this point I'm too geriatric to change, and I still greatly prefer this over ctrl-b. The only issue I've had is when I need to do code blocks in markdown, but I've just gotten used to hitting backtick twice when I need to actually use a backtick.

feels wrong to scp a dotfile to a server you only touch once

Worth mentioning my tmux llm chat helper sidechat: https://github.com/day50-dev/sidechat

I use it every day.

Make tmux cut/paste work on mac terminal.app so I don't have to install iterm2 bloatware.

i used to use tmux a lot when i used to develop on arch, since i moved to macos i never installed it.

tbh i even forgot what it used to buy me.

I've had the ctrl-a setup ever since migrating from screen to tmux, just due to muscle memory. But it is more conveniently located than ctrl-b - it's also rather nice if I have multiple nested layers of tmux due to temporary ones on other hosts. Sure you can just keep repeating the bind, but, just remembering that the second layer uses ctrl-b is a bit more convenient I feel. Slows me down a little, but usually I'm not using the 2nd layer as much.

I don't use capslock for ctrl though. It's much too useful as the Compose key ;)

the most tmux thing in the world is that "make tmux usable" is still a genre.

I've used ` as prefix for years now. Considering how often you switch windows/panes, I reckon using a single character has saved me hours per year. :D

It rarely conflicts with whatever I'm doing, but I have a binding to temporarily switch it to `C-a` and back, which I almost never use.

Oh, and I've used this themepack[1] for years as well.

Actually, here's my config[2] if someone finds it useful. I can't claim ownership of it, and probably stole it from somewhere I don't remember anymore.

BTW, the author's site https://rootloops.sh/ is certainly... something. :)

[1]: https://github.com/jimeh/tmux-themepack

[2]: https://gist.github.com/imiric/9bd3e5b7fc5e1468d05abc674f42e...

Rebinding C-b to C-a is a necessity for those of us whose muscle memory formed on GNU screen, been doing this for years. I like to set status-right to include host load average, with something akin to:

set -g status-right '#[fg=colour39, bg=colour234]#[fg=colour160] #h #[fg=colour088]avg: #(cat /proc/loadavg|cut -d" " -f1-3) '

set-option -g prefix C-x

has been working for me for years

Just use smux.dev

Did they fix being able to select text without a ton of empty spaces across multiple lines, and being able to use the mousewheel as effectively as a non-multiplexed terminal?

I remember running ssh to connect to a mainframe and starting gnu screen remotely right after watching the matrix. And I've used it ever since.

All these newage tmux hippie yuppies can get off my lawn.

As a long time user of gnu screen (almost fifteen years now) i still have on my todo list to come up with a tmux config that mimics gnu screen… does somebody know if such a thing exists already?

Btw I don’t strictly believe in a gnu screen superiority, i’m just lazy.

nice update on tmux

I ended up AI-slopcoding myself a small shell script for the few things I need from tmux: https://gist.github.com/dmitriid/523a5229c9a17a1cf4ad9182f4c...

I just couldn't be bothered to remember all the prefixed commands :)

that's pretty nice, but did you try cmux.com

I actually asked chatgpt to recommend me a great starter tmux conf, and it gave me 80% of this blog post. Not an insult btw.