Learning More

Although we've covered a lot of material in these videos, there is always more to learn. Tmux, like Vim, is a tool that I continue to learn about and grow with as my projects and workflows evolve over time. In this last video, we want to introduce you to some of the resources available for learning more about tmux to help keep the improvements coming.

Man Page

The primary learning tool for tmux is its man page, accessed by typing man tmux at your shell prompt. It is broken down into sections covering the commands, default key-bindings, and available configuration options. Due to tmux's consistent and intuitive command and option naming structure, I find it to be one of the most readable and useful man pages I've used.

Commands

Tmux provides an index of all the commands, accessed by running the command tmux list-commands at the shell.

This can be taken a step further by filtering the results to a topic of interest, e.g. pages, using grep:

$ tmux list-commands | grep pane

Key-Bindings

The live set of key-bindings can be displayed by running the command tmux list-keys, or by using the default key-binding of <prefix>? to display the list in the current pane.

Additional Resources

• Giant Robots tmux - Keep up with posts on the Giant Robots blog tagged with tmux
• Forum posts - Follow and post to the tmux category in the Upcase forum
• tmux.conf files on github - Browse other .tmux.conf files on GitHub for inspiration.

Final Config File

The final .tmux.conf file built up over the previous 5 steps of the tmux course, with comments included to clarify what each bit of configuration does:

# Replace C-b with C-s for the prefix key
unbind C-b
set -g prefix C-s
bind-key -r C-s send-prefix

# Easy reloading of the tmux.conf configuration file
bind-key r source-file ~/.tmux.conf \; display-message "~/.tmux.conf reloaded"

# Seamless aviation using vim-tmux-navigator (github christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator)
is_vim='echo "#{pane_current_command}" | grep -iqE "(^|\/)g?(view|n?vim?)(diff)?$"'
bind -n C-h if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-h" "select-pane -L"
bind -n C-j if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-j" "select-pane -D"
bind -n C-k if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-k" "select-pane -U"
bind -n C-l if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-l" "select-pane -R"
bind -n C-\ if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-\\" "select-pane -l"

# Restore clear screen keybind mapped over by tmux-navigator
bind C-l send-keys C-l

# Use 256 color mode, useful for Vim colorshemes
set-option -g default-terminal "screen-256color"

# Use emacs / readline key-bindings in the tmux command prompt
set-option -g status-keys "emacs"

# Allow the session name in status left to display up to 50 characters
set-option -g status-left-length 50

# More useful status-right with battery percentage and nicely formated datetime
set -g status-right "#(battery -t -g black)  #(date '+%a, %b %d - %I:%M') "

# More intuitive pane splitting key-bindings, open all in current path
bind-key - split-window -v  -c '#{pane_current_path}'
bind-key \ split-window -h  -c '#{pane_current_path}'
bind c new-window -c '#{pane_current_path}'

# Easy resizing of panes with fine and coarse adjustment
bind -n S-Left resize-pane -L 2
bind -n S-Right resize-pane -R 2
bind -n S-Down resize-pane -D 1
bind -n S-Up resize-pane -U 1
bind -n C-Left resize-pane -L 10
bind -n C-Right resize-pane -R 10
bind -n C-Down resize-pane -D 5
bind -n C-Up resize-pane -U 5

# Number windows starting at 1, renumber as windows are added / removed
set-option -g base-index 1
set-option -g renumber-windows on

bind-key b break-pane -d

# Use vim keybindings in copy mode
setw -g mode-keys vi

# Setup 'v' to begin selection as in Vim
bind-key -t vi-copy v begin-selection
bind-key -t vi-copy y copy-pipe "reattach-to-user-namespace pbcopy"

# Update default binding of `Enter` to also use copy-pipe
unbind -t vi-copy Enter
bind-key -t vi-copy Enter copy-pipe "reattach-to-user-namespace pbcopy"

# Sample quick-pane configurations
bind-key h split-window -h "htop"
bind-key t split-window -h -c ~/ "vim todo.md"
bind-key w split-window -h -c ~/my-wiki "vim +CtrlP"

# Fuzzy matching session navigation via fzf utility
bind C-j split-window -v "tmux list-sessions | sed -E 's/:.*$//' | grep -v \"^$(tmux display-message -p '#S')\$\" | fzf --reverse | xargs tmux switch-client -t"

# Prompted join-pane
bind-key j command-prompt -p "join pane from: "  "join-pane -h -s '%%'"

# Easily swap a pane (targeted by pane number) with the current pane
bind-key s display-panes\; command-prompt -p "pane #: "  "swap-pane -t '%%'"

# "break session" and "kill session" without exiting tmux
bind-key C-b send-keys 'tat && exit' 'C-m'
bind-key K run-shell 'tmux switch-client -n \; kill-session -t "$(tmux
display-message -p "#S")" || tmux kill-session'