hmux (hammermux)

An emacs-inspired configuration of tmux.

Overview

hmux is an emacs-inspired configuration of tmux that also comes along with a few helpful bash functions to make tmux more accessible.

While tmux is not nearly as customizable as emacs, tmux does come with a surprising amount of customizable variables, hooks and bindings. The C-h help prefix key should come in handy for anyone who wants to play around with their tmux config.

If you use vim or another editor and want to setup an easy-to-use tmux configuration, hmux's .tmux.conf file should be good a starting place to begin switching over useful tmux bindings to your familiar keys.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/zhammer/hmux.git ~/.tmux.d ; ~/.tmux.d/install.sh should be all you need to install hmux and be able to pull from and push to github. This will clone hmux into ~/.tmux.d and create a symlink linking ~/.tmux.conf -> ~/.tmux.d/.tmux.conf. The install.sh script will rename any current ~/.tmux.conf file to ~/.tmux.conf.old.{timestamp} so you don't lose old configurations.

You can also just clone the hmux repo and hard copy hmux/.tmux.conf to ~/.tmux.conf if you don't want to setup ~/.tmux.d and the symlinking, though it'll be harder to pull in github updates and you won't have a centralized, easy-to-access tmux directory.

Emacs-inspired bindings

• C-x- global prefix key
  • In hmux, the default tmux prefix key is switched from C-b to C-x to match the prefix key of emacs.
  • (This means that using emacs in the shell requires an extra C-x to send the prefix key to emacs, though I dont know many people who use emacs in -nw mode. If this is an issue, you can set -g prefix to another key.)
• C-h- help prefix key
  • Prefix command for accessing information on active tmux key bindings and environment variables as well as tmux man-page documentation.
  • C-h-? for more info (experimental)
• C-x 0 delete current pane
  • Delete the current pane. Fails if there is only one pane in the current window.
• C-x 1 delete other panes in window
  • Delete all panes in the current window besides the active pane.
• C-x 2 split pane below
  • Split the current pane vertically so that the new pane below is in the current pane's directory.
• C-x 3 split pane right
  • Split the current pane horizontally so that the new pane to the right is in the current pane's directory.
• C-x k kill pane (y/n)
• M-x AND M-: command prompt
  • Again, this conflicts with the emacs bindings if running in -nw mode. You can use prefix M-x and prefix M-: to send M-x and M-: to emacs in shell. If inconvenient, I recommend changing these bindings.
• C-x g magit-lite
  • If inside a git repo, view the colorized git diff and status in a new window.

Custom hmux bindings / shortcuts

• C-x r re-source ~/.tmux.conf file
• M-[ copy mode
• M-] paste buffer
• C-x M-(Up|Down|Left|Right) quick resize
• M-T open new window in ~/.tmux.d
• C-x Y toggle sYnchronized-panes
  • When synchronized-panes is on, tmux will mirror keyboard input to all panes in the active window.
• C-x a monitor-activity
  • When monitor-activity is on, windows in a session that have updated will display as highlighted in the status bar. (This behavior can be customized, see: the visual-activity window option.)
• C-b [0-9] switch to window [0-9]
  • (hmux's emacs bindings overwrite some of the default C-x 0-9 switch to window bindings)
• C-x b choose-buffer
  • All text saved to clipboard iin tmux is saved to an emacs-style kill-ring
• C-x W rename-window

Helpful tmux bindings / commands

• C-x s choose session
  • Open the list of active sessions in an interactive pane
  • tmux command: choose-tree -s
• C-x z zoom pane
  • 'Zoom in' on the current pane, making it full screen until the C-x z is entered again
  • tmux command: resize-pane -Z
• C-x C-o rotate window
  • Rotate panes in the window
  • tmux command: rotate-window

Bash functions (tx.sh)

• tx ls
  • List all sessions on the default tmux server (tmux ls).
• tx {session_name}
  • If called from outside a tmux client:
    • Attach to {session_name} if it exists, otherwise create a new session called {session_name} and attach to it.
  • If called from inside a tmux client:
    • Switch to {session_name} if it exists, otherwise print an error message.
• txk {session_name}
  • Kill {session_name}.

Learning tmux

I read Brian Hogan's tmux 2 reference book in one afternoon at work after I'd spent a day juggling 5 shell windows to simultaneously start/stop a service, read its logs and run scripts on its data. The next day I was doing the same thing -- albeit a lot more easily -- in tmux. tmux 2 is a great book and a really quick read.

Overall, tmux is a great tool; the only major hurdle is the key bindings which are not always super convenient. Hopefully hmux can make that transition easier.