Notes on rolling out tmux

For anyone that spends a reasonable amount of time in a terminal, uses Vi, or has adopted a [text based approach], the use of a ‘multiplexer’ is helpful for managing the various terminals that one inevitably ends up having open at any one time.

I have used [screen] for a while, particularly when doing server admin¹. Recently, I came across a similar tool, tmux that I thought would be worth testing out. There can be a steep learning curve with some of these things, and tmux was the same. Here are some notes, tips and resources.

introductions

• https://hackernoon.com/a-gentle-introduction-to-tmux-8d784c404340
• https://thoughtbot.com/blog/a-tmux-crash-course
• https://danielmiessler.com/study/tmux/
• A cheatsheet
• A comprehensive guide
• More advanced as both ViM and tmux can create split windows.
• and 4 useful tips
• More ViM and tmux
• Software development with vim and tmux

tmux configuration

• you can generate a file of the running configuration
• There are (similar to ViM) a large range of configuration options, files, tweaks and even meta configs. An example
• A definitive guide to the status line
• another guide to configuration
• The config file references a color palette of 16 or 256 colours. You can display a list of these colours by running this shell script.

reference

You can move a window between sessions

move-window -t other_session:

And move a pane between windows and sessions

Often you create windows in the order that you need them, but later want to adjust. A useful command is

swap-window -s id -t 1

Other variations are discussed at this SE thread