Feb 16, 2025

Tmux

I use alacritty as my main terminal emulator. I spend a lot of time on it. But there is one feature missing : the tabs ! Of course i could switch to another terminal emulator with that feature but i love alacritty. I also would like to stay as minimalist as possible. That’s where a terminal multiplexer comes in. There are many options out there : - Gnu screen - Tmux - Zellij I’ve tested all of them, the one i feel the more comfortable with is tmux.

Tmux functionnality i use

To start a command in tmux the default is ctrl + b + command. In order to be readable i will only list the command :

create a new tab

rename the current tab

go to tab number three

go to previous tab

go to next tab

close the tab

view all keybindings, exit with q

detach from the current session

From the terminal there are few usefull commands:

tmux ls

list sessions

tmux attach -t 0

attach to the session number 0

tmux source .tmux.conf

load/reload config file

That’s all the keybindings i use for now, tmux can also split the terminal but i’ve got a tiling window manager so i’don’t use that. And other features aren’t useful for me.

Start Tmux on terminal launch

To start tmux at every start of my terminal, i’ve added tmux in my .bashrc file.

#
# ~/.bashrc
#

# If not running interactively, don't do anything
[[ $- != *i* ]] && return

alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias sudo='doas'
#PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '
fastfetch
#PS1='\e[36m[\u@\h:\e[34m\w]\]\e[00m$ '
eval "$(starship init bash)"

# start tmux
tmux

# Created by `pipx` on 2024-05-04 14:54:14
export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/.local/share/gem/ruby/3.3.0/bin:${PATH}
export GEM_PATH=/usr/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/:$HOME/.local/share/gem/ruby/3.3.0/

# Correct a bug with java and wayland

export _JAVA_AWT_WM_NONREPARENTING=1
# default screenshot directory
GRIM_DEFAULT_DIR=/home/mathieu/Screenshots
XDG_SCREENSHOTS_DIR=/home/mathieu/Screenshots

# Enables autocompletion of options for bashfuscator
eval "$(/sbin/register-python-argcomplete bashfuscator)"

Adaptation

The default setup is ok but lacks the mouse scroll, in order to enable it i’ve written a .tmux.conf file :

#.tmux.conf
# Enable mouse mode
set -g mouse on

# Enable clipboard
set -s set-clipboard external

Then i use the following command :

tmux source .tmux.conf

There is one feature that is different from what i normally do, in my terminal i use middle mouse button to paste highlighted info from other apps. In order to do that inside tmux i have to press shift + middle button. If it is from tmux to tmux i just press middle click.