tmux is a terminal multiplexer: it enables a number of terminals
to be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen. tmux
may be detached from a screen and continue running in the
background, then later reattached.
– [tmux manpage][]
When I first heard of tmux I just assumed it was a beefed up version of screen.
I had used screen many years ago in order to keep an IRC client logged in even
if I was not connected to my shell. At the time I didn’t see much benefit in
adding a tool like this to my development environment.
For a long time I heard developers singing the praise of vim and tmux. Hearing
about the release of iTerm2 2.0 and it’s integration with tmux sparked my
interest in tmux and vim once again. I still don’t know exactly how iTerm2 and
tmux integrate, but I’m really happy with my workflow with vim and tmux.
I have been using vim+tmux together for a couple of weeks now and there’s no
looking back. If you’re willing to invest a little bit of time to set things
up, you’ll quickly make up the time with your streamlined workflow.
Prerequisites
brew install tmux
brew install macvim --override-system-vim
Download and install iTerm2 (optional)
Out of the Box
Below are some of the most basic commands for interacting with tmux.
Create a session
The first thing you’ll want to do after installing tmux is create a session.
$ tmux new -s gaslight-blog
Detach session
You can detach from the session at any point by pressing:
Ctrl-b d
Attach session
You can attach to the session from the command line with:
$ tmux attach -t gaslight-blog
Split horizontally
You no longer have to be dependent on your terminal application to create split panes.
Ctrl-b %
Split vertically
Ctrl-b "
Pane Navigation
| Keybinding |
Action |
| Ctrl-b ↑ | Up |
| Ctrl-b ↓ | Down |
| Ctrl-b ← | Left |
| Ctrl-b → | Right |
</tr>
tmux.conf
I ran into numerous issues when starting out with vim, tmux, iterm2, and mac
os. My tmux.conf is pretty
slim and well documented at the moment and I recommend you check it out.
vim workflow
The main reason that I continue to use tmux is the great integration that can
be achieved with vim+tmux. Prior to using tmux I used MacVim, but if you’re
going to use vim and tmux together you’ll need to use terminal vim.
vim-tmux-navigator
Perhaps my favorite feature about using vim and tmux together is
vim-tmux-navigator. This
plugin allows you to treat vim and tmux as one a unified session, with the
ability to seamlessly navigate between vim splits and tmux panes.
| Keybinding |
Action |
</thead>
| Ctrl-l | right |
| Ctrl-k | up |
| Ctrl-j | down |
| Ctrl-h | left |
</tr>
</table>
This assumes you're already navigating your vim splits like a sane person using
these bindings by adding this setting to your .vimrc:
```
nnoremap j
nnoremap k
nnoremap h
nnoremap l
```
### rspec.vim + tslime.vim
One thing that I missed when I was transitioning from emacs to vim was
rspec-mode. I quickly discovered [rspec.vim](https://github.com/thoughtbot/vim-rspec) which allows you to run specs from within your editor.
I didn't spend too much time working with rspec.vim before I was
frustrated by the default behavior which blocks the entire vim
process. This is no fault of rspec.vim, rather it is more of an
issue with vim. Thankfully rspec.vim has a lot of flexibility for
generating custom commands and you can easily integrate with
[Dispatch](https://github.com/tpope/vim-dispatch) or
[tslime.vim](https://github.com/jgdavey/tslime.vim). I am currently
using tslime.vim using the instructions
[here](https://robots.thoughtbot.com/running-specs-from-vim-sent-to-tmux-via-tslime)
and it seems to be working well.
### vim-like copy and paste
I am still learning the ins and outs of copy and paste while using vim and tmux
together. If you're willing to give up using the mouse for selection [this
article](https://robots.thoughtbot.com/tmux-copy-paste-on-os-x-a-better-future)
provides instructions on getting copy and paste setup very similar to vim.
### colors
When I first started vim inside of tmux the colors were not correct. After
searching I found that I needed to add this to my tmux.conf:
```
set -g default-terminal "screen-256color"
```
I also had to make sure that iTerm2 was reporting the terminal type as
`xterm-256color`.
## References
This article was made possible with the help of many other articles:
[https://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/reloading-tmux-config/](https://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/reloading-tmux-config/)
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/tmux](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/tmux)
[https://robots.thoughtbot.com/a-tmux-crash-course](https://robots.thoughtbot.com/a-tmux-crash-course)
[https://coderwall.com/p/j9wnfw](https://coderwall.com/p/j9wnfw)
[https://robots.thoughtbot.com/tmux-copy-paste-on-os-x-a-better-future](https://robots.thoughtbot.com/tmux-copy-paste-on-os-x-a-better-future)
[https://www.dayid.org/os/notes/tm.html](https://www.dayid.org/os/notes/tm.html)
[https://github.com/altercation/solarized/issues/159#issuecomment-5566892](https://github.com/altercation/solarized/issues/159#issuecomment-5566892)
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10158508/lose-vim-colorscheme-in-tmux-mode](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10158508/lose-vim-colorscheme-in-tmux-mode)
[tmux manpage]:https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/en/man1/tmux.1.html
