Make Tmux Pretty and Usable (2024)

Just even for how tab and panes are setup, and how it's good for scrolling and text selection with your mouse for copy pasting.

Was quite impressed initially and invested weeks in building new muscle memory, but somehow Zellij crashed with panic more than once, leaving all my processes orphaned. Decided to go back to tmux, and found a simple fix for my Shift+Enter issue.

In case anyone is looking for it, the fix is "bind-key -T root S-Enter send-keys C-j" borrowed from https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/6072.

That said, I'd push back on the idea that the default tmux config is just "ugly". The real usability issue is that the keybindings are so divorced from how people intuitively think about splits and windows that even experienced users can't remember them. The visual defaults are just a symptom of the deeper problem that it was designed for someone who already had a mental model built around screen.

    bind-key -n M-n new-window
    bind-key -n M-1 select-window -t :1
    bind-key -n M-2 select-window -t :2
    bind-key -n M-3 select-window -t :3
    bind-key -n M-4 select-window -t :4
    bind-key -n M-5 select-window -t :5
    bind-key -n M-6 select-window -t :6
    bind-key -n M-7 select-window -t :7
    bind-key -n M-8 select-window -t :8
    bind-key -n M-9 select-window -t :9

Also if you want a vi-like copy mode (where you can select and copy stuff) that opens using Alt-/:

    bind-key -n M-/ copy-mode
    set -g status-keys vi
    set-window-option -g mode-keys vi

    # v to trigger selection
    bind-key -T copy-mode-vi v send-keys -X begin-selection
    
    # wl-copy if you use wayland
    # mouse selection in copy mode to copy
    bind-key -T copy-mode-vi MouseDragEnd1Pane send -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "wl-copy"
    # y to copy
    bind-key -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "wl-copy"

You can also put the config into ~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf

edit: And if you want a powerline-style design:

    set -g pane-border-style "fg=colour252"
    set -g pane-active-border-style "fg=colour25"
    set -g status-style "bg=default,fg=default"
    set -g status-left "#[fg=colour231,bg=colour25,bold] #S #[fg=colour25,bg=default,nobold]"
    set -g status-right "#[fg=colour67,bg=default]#[fg=colour231,bg=colour67] %Y-%m-%d  %H:%M #[fg=colour25,bg=colour67]#[fg=colour231,bg=colour25,bold] #h "
    setw -g window-status-format "#[fg=colour243,bg=default] #I  #W "
    setw -g window-status-current-format "#[fg=colour28,bg=default,reverse]#[fg=colour231,bg=colour28,bold,noreverse] #I  #W #[fg=colour28,bg=default,noreverse]"

Try `tmux -CC` in iTerm.

For a tmux novice like me, this was a total game changer :)

[1] https://doc.xn0.org/.tmux.conf

Disclaimer: I am being silly but serious. tmux is absolutely not user-friendly out of the box. It is, however, extremely nice after an absurd amount of tweaking, which is either an endorsement or a damning, depending on your perspective.

I wish it had better defaults but now I run it as is. After a while you get used to it. The only thing I always have to change is the mouse scroll and my brain cannot retain the exact command.

[0] https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/Control-Mode

[1] https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/issues/1935#issuecomm...

Seems like they are keeping up-to-date too: https://bookshop.org/p/books/tmux-3-productive-mouse-free-de...

> Probably the most common change among tmux users is to change the prefix from the rather awkward C-b to something that’s a little more accessible.

I like the awkwardness of the default prefix key. I have almost never activated it by accident.

> Intuitive Split Commands

> Another thing I personally find quite difficult to remember is the pane splitting commands." to split vertically and % to split horizontally just doesn’t work for my brain.

This is super intuitive to me. two ' in parallel means splitting horizontally. two ° split by an almost horizontal line means splitting vertically.

> Easy Config Reloads

I reloaded config over a few hundreds of times in my first week learning tmux a decade ago. I only reloaded config once in the last 5 years if I recall correctly. It's not something you should memorize.

    set -g status-style "bg=red"

    set -g status-justify absolute-centre
    set -g status-position top

  set -g mouse on

  setw -g aggressive-resize on

— session configuration save/recall (with pane layout for each tab and directory for each pane[0]),

— nvim integration (for seamless split navigation and so that I can create or reattach to a tmux session in an nvim float, even though that nvim usually runs inside tmux),

— a bind to force-reload a pane if (when!) a command hangs.

For switching between tabs, I find that the ideal bind is simply Cmd + pane number. There’s never more than ten tabs that I’d often want to switch to within a single session. The highest number is probably four tabs. Each tab is typically assigned a high-level part of the project.

[0] I always forget what terminology a given multiplexer uses, so let’s just call them “panes” and “tabs”.

    unbind C-b
    set-option -g prefix C-Space
    bind-key C-Space send-prefix

https://github.com/cmpadden/dotfiles/blob/6e767691a6b1295260...

This lets you put your theme colors in a different file, such as `source-file "~/.config/tmux/theme.conf"` and then your theme switching external script or tool can symlink a specific theme's tmux file to that path.

That's what I do in my dotfiles:

    # Main tmux config
    https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles/blob/master/.config/tmux/tmux.conf

    # One of the theme files
    https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles/blob/master/themes/tokyonight-moon/tmux.conf

I do almost all interactive work while detached from tmux (personal preference)

I also rely on tmux buffers for a textmode "clipboard". I do not use x11

I've been using tmux since 2011 well before it became popular. I only use a fraction of its features

For the vim/nvim fans out there, I try my best to add "vim-style" key bindings for navigating between panes, so that e.g. ctrl-h, ctrl-j, ctrl-k, and ctrl-l can be used to move around qukcly. My dotfiles are here:

https://github.com/jay-khatri/dotfiles/blob/main/.tmux.conf

Because the author suggested swapping caps lock and control key, I also recommend mapping escape key at the control key and change the behavior based on whether another key is pressed. For example, if you press control + a, it sends c-a, but if you only press control key and then release, it sends escape. It makes your vim life (and in general) a lot easier. You don’t have to compete the most variable real estate on the keyboard, right next to the A key.

For most bindings like moving, resizing, and splitting,I emulate vim bindings.

Also, -r flag for bind-key command is impotent, because it enables to repeat commands like changing the pane size or move focus. You don’t have to press prefix key each time.

If you want to get fancy look with minimal setting, use plugins like nord tmux theme.

My hotkey is the backtick, `, rather than a chord.

The one thing I still struggle with - because it happens rarely - is easily copying the contents, full or partial, of a particular pane.

    set-option -gq status-style "fg=brightblue,overline"

I also hated dealing with all the wrong colors, escape character support, missing chars and messed up terminal buffers

Disconnecting a session's lifetime from the connection's lifetime hardly need such lengthy tutorial.

And displaying and arranging multiple virtual terminals was supposed to be the job of the terminal emulator and the windowing system.

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.

https://github.com/morantron/tmux-fingers

(disclaimer: I'm the developer of the plugin)

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...)

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

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.

I use it every day.

tbh i even forgot what it used to buy me.

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

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...

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

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