tmux – the return

It's been ages that I've wanted to learn how to use tmux, but I never found the time or motivation to actually do it.

It's one of those tools that you either begin learning as a junior at the start of your career, or you tinker with it on your personal laptop when you're feeling adventurous and have some spare time.

Funny, this reminds me a lot of vim. I've attempted to learn all the shortcuts multiple times when I began my career as dev. However, Textmate and later Sublime Text were always there to simplify my life. The terminal remained this enigmatic realm that I knew how to utilize, but not as good as I desired.

I've just hopped onboard a new startup ship, and it's the golden opportunity to dive into the depths of tmux.

After being persuaded by the devs I've been following on YouTube, I'm making a triumphant return to the world of terminals (after getting comfortable with the one in VSCode) to learn some exciting new tricks. Somehow, their disdain for #soydevs has motivated me to return to the native terminal (not even iTerm2). I am even considering to get back to Linux 🙃

What is tmux?

Where your terminal gains superpowers. Tmux is like a multitasking wizard that lets you split, manage, and juggle multiple terminal sessions with a flick of your keyboard. It works seamlessly over SSH too. It's a command center for productivity.

My goal

The end goal? Reacquainting myself with (neo)vim. But let's not kid ourselves, absorbing a gazillion keyboard shortcuts at warp speed is a surefire way to invite chaos. So, for my first month on this learning adventure, it's all about tmux.

Here are the handy commands I've already wrapped my brain around. Jotting them down on my blog is like creating a cheat sheet that's just a URL away, ready to rescue me from the depths of forgetfulness. Yeah, I've already filed these babies away in my Obsidian notes. But you know the drill: the more you jot, the less you blot.

YEP! Another Cheat Sheet

NB:

Many guides I've come across use always the + symbol, but I find it counterintuitive. The + sign is typically associated with key combinations where you press keys simultaneously. On the other hand, I use the arrow → to indicate that a command follows the previous one in sequence.

The "prefix key" is always CTRL + b
Command mode CTRL + b → :
Copy mode CTRL + b → [

Install it on MacOS with brew. It's easy.

brew install tmux

Run it

tmux

Split the screen vertically

CTRL + b → %

Split the screen horizontally

CTRL + b → "

Switch between panes

CTRL + b → o

Scroll up/down

CTRL + b → [ → arrows / mouse wheel(*)

q to exit the copy mod

Adjusting screen split pane sizes

CTRL + b → Esc + (arrow key) works only one time
To resize down, use: CTRL + b → : → resize-p -D 2
To resize up resize-p -U 2
To resize left: resize-p -L 2
To resize right resize-p -R 2

Kill current pane

CTRL+b → x

[*]: Scroll with mouse wheel

This is a configuration command, so you have to set it only once.

Enter in Command Mode: CTRL + b → :

Then write:

setw -g mouse on

Useful links

This post is WIP