tmux usage 101
Motivation: why you should use tmux?
tmux is very useful under the following scenarios:
- When you
sshto a server, you would like to open multiple shells but don't want tosshfor multiple times. - When you want to leave your work on the server running without needing to keep your shell alive, and moreover, you want to resume working on it afterwards
And it's just cool when you can split the shells windows!
Basic Usage
All the commands for tmux are only available after you type the command prefix. By default it is Ctrl-b. After pressing this combination, it will activate the console mode (or so I believe).
Pane commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
" | Split current pane vertically, create new pane underneath |
% | Split current pane horizontally, create new pane on the right |
x | Close current pane (with confirmation, contrasst to simply pressing Ctrl-d) |
z | Maximize current pane (after v1.8) |
! | Move current pane to a new window and open it there |
; | Switch to the latest used pane |
q | Show pane number, and before the numbers disappear, you can switch to that pane by typing the number |
{ | Swap forward current pane |
} | Swap backward current pane |
Ctrl+o | Swap all the panes in current window clockwise |
arrow | Move to the pane pointed by the arrow key (intuitive!) |
o | Switch to the next (pane number order) pane |
t | Show a clock :) |
Configure
Change command prefix
The default command prefix Ctrl-b is not a very good key binding: they are too far away! My choice is to change it to Ctrl-a, but it could be set to any keybinding you like.
We should use Ctrl-b and then type : to enter the command line mod and enter the following lines
set -g prefix C-a
unbind C-b
bind C-a send-prefix
My current favorite prefix is the grave accent (`), but this kinda hinders editing markdown in tmux.
If you would like to set it permanently, it is wise to create a ~/.tmux.conf, it functions just like your .bashrc and other dotfiles. If you
Since tmux 1.6, it is possible to set a second prefix by the following command:
set -g prefix2 <your-key-binding>
To apply changes, you need to source the configuration file:
tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf