How to improve your productivity in your terminal with Tmux

A terminal multiplexer is a software application that can be used to split a single terminal into one or more virtual sessions. Basically, we can have multiple sessions inside one single terminal and attach and detach these sessions when required.

It is useful for dealing with multiple command line tools and applications and for separating programs from the Unix shell’s sessions that started them, that’s particularly important when we want a remote process or program to continue running even when the connection is closed or down.

Let’s say you have to administer a remote server via ssh but the connection is poor and unreliable. That is highly annoying because you have to reconnect often and obviously, you don’t want to lose all your job and restart your tasks and processes all over again. Terminal multiplexers offer the possibility of saving your sessions and then disconnect. Once you log on again, you can reattach to your last session and continue just where you have left it.

 

Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal is the most tmux-like terminal for Windows because it supports multiple tabs and multi-pane view at the terminal-level (splitting the terminal into multiple panes), regardless of shell for better productivity and multitasking.

To open/close a new tab, just click the + button on the tab bar or press Ctrl, Shift and T/W. To move through the tabs, press Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Shift+Tab. To split the terminal into two panes, press Alt, Shift, and + (vertically), Alt, Shift, and - (horizontally). To switch between these panes, press Alt + arrow keys.

 

iTerm

iTerm is also somewhat similar to Tmux. You can create multiple virtual windows inside a single ‘physical’ window and you can split, swap, and resize panes.

When you first start iTerm2, a window opens showing a terminal session. If you want to open more than one session at a time…

• You can create a new window: Shell, New Window. Alternatively, to open/close a new window: Command ⌘ + N/Command ⌘ + W
• You can create a new tab: Shell, New Tab. To open/close a new tab, the shortcut is: Command ⌘ + T/Command ⌘ + W. To Go to a tab: Command ⌘ + Number Key.
• You can split the current session into two panes: Shell, Split Horizontally or Shell, Split Vertically. To divide a tab into two rectangular panes, press Command ⌘ + d (vertically) or Command ⌘ + Shift + d (horizontally). To navigate among split panes, press Command ⌘ + Option + Arrow.

… each of which is a separate session.

 

Tmux

• Tmux is an open-source terminal multiplexer. It allows multiple terminal sessions and you can open multiple windows inside each session. Each window occupies the entire screen, but it can be split vertically and horizontally into rectangular panes.Sessions are persistent, which means that programs running on Tmux will continue to run even if you get disconnected.

1. Installation. Windows. You need to install WSL and a Linux distribution first. macOS (brew install tmux). Arch (sudo pacman -S tmux ‐‐noconfirm). Ubuntu (sudo apt install tmux tmuxinator).
2. All commands in Tmux start with a prefix, which by default is: Ctrl + b. You can start your first Tmux session by typing: tmux, but it is a better idea to create a new named session (you should use a descriptive name): tmux new -s session_name. You can detach from the session and return to your normal shell (Ctrl + b + d, detach), show all sessions (tmux ls), and attach to the last session (tmux attach) or to a named session (tmux a -t mysession). Finally, you kill the session by typing tmux kill-session -t mysession
3. When you start a new session, it creates one window and a single panel inside. You can create a new window (a kind of virtual terminal or desktop) by typing: Ctrl + b + c (create). You can switch to the previous window (Ctrl + b + p, previous), the next window (Ctrl + b + n, next) or directly to a particular window (Ctrl + b + number). You can close the current window by typing: Ctrl + b + &.
4. We can split the window into panes horizontally (Ctrl + b + “) or vertically (Ctrl + b + %). Next, you may want to switch/move between panes: Prefix + ←, ↑, →, ↓. or close the current pane (Ctrl + b + x).
5. Customizing Tmux (A more detail explanation can be found in Making tmux Pretty and Usable by Ham Vocke). You need to edit Tmux’s configuration file: nvim ~/.tmux.conf

   # remap prefix from 'Ctrl-b' to 'Ctrl-a'
   unbind C-b
   set-option -g prefix C-a
   bind-key C-a send-prefix
   
   # Mouse compatibility
   set-option -g mouse on
   set -g set-clipboard on
   
   # split panes using Ctrl-h and Ctrl-v
   bind h split-window -h
   bind v split-window -v
   unbind '"'
   unbind %
   
   # switch panes using Alt-arrow without prefix
   bind -n M-Left select-pane -L
   bind -n M-Right select-pane -R
   bind -n M-Up select-pane -U
   bind -n M-Down select-pane -D
   
   # reload tmux conf with Prefix + r
   bind r source ~/.tmux.conf 
   # command delay? No
   set -g escape-time 10
   ############################################
   ### DESIGN CHANGES (/u/dothebarbwa)      ###
   ############################################
   
   # loud or quiet?
   set -g visual-activity off
   set -g visual-bell off
   set -g visual-silence off
   setw -g monitor-activity off
   set -g bell-action none
   
   #  modes
   setw -g clock-mode-colour colour5
   setw -g mode-style 'fg=colour1 bg=colour18 bold'
   
   # panes
   set -g pane-border-style 'fg=colour19 bg=colour0'
   set -g pane-active-border-style 'bg=colour0 fg=colour9'
   
   # statusbar
   set -g status-position bottom
   set -g status-justify left
   set -g status-style 'bg=colour18 fg=colour137 dim'
   set -g status-left ''
   set -g status-right '#[fg=colour233,bg=colour19] %d/%m #[fg=colour233,bg=colour8] %H:%M:%S '
   set -g status-right-length 50
   set -g status-left-length 20
   
   setw -g window-status-current-style 'fg=colour1 bg=colour19 bold'
   setw -g window-status-current-format ' #I#[fg=colour249]:#[fg=colour255]#W#[fg=colour249]#F '
   
   setw -g window-status-style 'fg=colour9 bg=colour18'
   setw -g window-status-format ' #I#[fg=colour237]:#[fg=colour250]#W#[fg=colour244]#F '
   
   setw -g window-status-bell-style 'fg=colour255 bg=colour1 bold'
   
   # messages
   set -g message-style 'fg=colour232 bg=colour16 bold'
   

6. We are going to use tmuxinator to create and manage tmux sessions easily.
7. Let’s create a new project: tmuxinator new mySession. We can edit it later with: tmuxinator edit mySession
8. Layouts can be customized. If you want to get the custom layout snippet for your current window, just type: tmux lsw -F “#{window_active} #{window_layout}” | awk ‘$1{print $2}’. In my case, it was 4a38,192x55,0,0{101x55,0,0,2,90x55,102,0,8}.

   # /home/$USER/.config/tmuxinator/mySession.yml
   name: mySession # Session's name and project
   root: ~/
   
   windows: # The windows option allows the specification of any number of tmux windows. We define three windows: first_window, system_info, and entertaining.
     - first_window:
         layout: main-horizontal # You can arrange panes in one of the five preset layouts: even-horizontal, even-vertical, main-horizontal, main-vertical, or tiled.
         panes: # Panes are optional and are children of window entries. We define the panes that get created inside each window. 
           - nvim myfile.txt # Under each pane, we can give a command to execute.
           - cal
           - date
     - system_info:
         layout: tiled
         panes:
           - free -h
           - df -h
           - sensors
           - htop
     - entertaining:
         layout: 4a38,192x55,0,0{101x55,0,0,2,90x55,102,0,8} # We use the previous layout.
         panes:
             - is_justtothepoint_alive:
                 - ping -c 4 justtothepoint.com : # You can execute many commands in a pane, e.g., ping -c 4 justtothepoint.com, is justtothepoint.com alive?
                 - newsboat
             - music:
                 - radio
   

9. Start a session: tmuxinator mySession
10. Finally, we can remove a project (tmuxinator delete [project]), list all projects (tmuxinator list), and kill the session (tmux kill-session -t mysession)