Getting Started with Tmux: Development Tool

tmux is an awesome tool for developers to improve their workflow. Here I am going to cover some of the basic functionalities along with the aliases that I use, for you guys to start with tmux.

tmux.conf

The ~/.tmux.conf file is a config file for tmux. The tmux global configs are set here. This is our playground for this post.

Remap the prefix

Now Let us remap the prefix from crtl + b to ctrl + a. I choose ctrl + a because it is easier to access those keys together. Add the fllowing snippet to your ~/.tmux.conffile and reload it using source-file ~/.tmux.conf.

# remap prefix to Control + a
set -g prefix C-a
unbind C-b
bind C-a send-prefix

Reload easily

Now after changing the ~/.tmux.conf, I felt a little annoying to run the commandsource-file ~/.tmux.conf everytime. So I wrote 2 lines to make this task just a single button away. Add the following lines to your ~/.tmux.conf and reload it using source-file ~/.tmux.conf

# force a reload of the config file
unbind r
bind r source-file ~/.tmux.conf

Now all you need to do is change the tmux.conf file and do ctrl + a and r. This will reload the config file for you.

Panes

Another feature of tmux is you can type ctrl + a and % to split the window vertically and ctrl + a and " to split the window horizontally. Personally I found this very annoying and hard to remember. So I decided to have the key v for vertical split and h for horizontal split. So I added the following to my tmux.conffile. Additionally doing a vertical or horizontal split will split the pane and put you into the home directory.

unbind %
unbind '"'
bind C-v split-window -v -c "#{pane_current_path}"
bind C-h split-window -h -c "#{pane_current_path}"

This will enable you to use ctrl + v to split the pane vertically and put you in the same folder as you were before splitting the pane. Similarly for ctrl + h.

Additional Points

• You can create new windows using ctrl + a and c.
• You can kill a pane using ctrl + a and x. This will ask you for (y)es or (n)o prompt, typing in y will kill the active pane.
• Google about tmux sessions and learn to use them efficiently.
• Make tmux start at the start of your terminal.

The following is the tmux aliases that I use. Feel free to use them as per your needs.

tnew_session(){
    
    TMUX= tmux new-session -d -s $1
        tmux switch-client -t $1
}


alias tnews='tnew_session'
alias tls='tmux list-session'
alias tlw='tmux list-window'
alias tsw='tmux switch -t '
alias tlc='tmux list-command'
alias tat='tmux attach -t'
alias trs='tmux rename-session -t'



alias tks='tmux kill-session -t'