Tmux – Developer Productivity 2

The Terminal Experience

I have a list of things i want in my terminal to make it useful and it all is

centered around navigation.

What I Want

sessions that last even when i close my terminal
multiple running sessions, and these sessions are based on directory
"tabs" within a session
navigate to any session by directory name "instantly"
navigate to any session by directory with fuzzy find
run scripts or whatever programs i want when navigating to a directory

I Choose Tmux

I personally use tmux + ghostty, though i hear wezterm, another terminal emulator, you can emulate pretty much every way I use tmux. I have not used wezterm so i cannot speak much about it. Zellij has similar experience but more modern

Quick Notes

About 3 years ago I did the first version of Dev productivity and some things about my setup has changed, and parts have remained the same. After 3 years, this is still my most useful script I have ever created. But i have added some significant improvements to the script

Installing TMUX

Platform	Install Command
Arch Linux	`pacman -S tmux`
Debian or Ubuntu	`apt install tmux`
Fedora	`dnf install tmux`
RHEL or CentOS	`yum install tmux`
macOS (using Homebrew)	`brew install tmux`
macOS (using MacPorts)	`port install tmux`
openSUSE	`zypper install tmux`

Base Config

Here is the basic config that will make life easier. This will ensure that you have a similar experience to me

set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color"
set -s escape-time 0
set -g base-index 1

# optional -- i like C-a not C-b (pure preference)
unbind C-b
set-option -g prefix C-a
bind-key C-a send-prefix

# vi key movement for copy/pasta mode
set-window-option -g mode-keys vi
bind -T copy-mode-vi v send-keys -X begin-selection
bind -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel 'xclip -in -selection clipboard'

# <WHERE YOUR TMUX CONF GOES> = XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tmux/tmux.conf
# <WHERE YOUR TMUX CONF GOES> = ~/.tmux.conf
bind r source-file <WHERE YOUR TMUX CONF GOES> \; display-message "tmux.conf reloaded"

Install it via our dev-env!

We can even use our fancy new dev-env script to install it!

Lets navigate tmux

Lets go through some basic commands about tmux so you can see how they work with just usage. I will show you the ones I use and some that I don't use

ource /home/theprimeagen/.tmux-sessionizer what is prefix key

just using -* commands

creating window
detaching
attaching
showing all running sessions
killing pane / window / session
creating and navigating splits
- tmux is controlled by a config

A bit of customization

I like to navigate my tmux panes like i navigate my vim windows

lets try this out:

# Add to your tmux.conf file
bind -r h select-pane -L
bind -r j select-pane -D
bind -r k select-pane -U
bind -r l select-pane -R

Based on my previous 5 points, only two have been met.

sessions that last even when i close my terminal

"tabs" within a session

It turns out that tmux is also scriptable! And its quite fantastic

The Session API

A target is a tuple of <session_name>[:<widx>|<wname>[.<pane_idx>]]

tmux new-session -s <sname> -n <initial wname> -d[etach]
tmux list-sessions
tmux attach-session -t <target>
tmux has-session -t <target> # don't forget -t vs -t=
tmux switch-client -t <target>

The Window API

tmux new-window -n <name> [-t session:window_index]
tmux list-windows [-t session]
tmux select-window -t session:[window_idx | window_name].[pane_idx]

Other fun apis

tmux send-keys -t <target> "text" [ctrl keys,...]

Lets start with our first script

From my original points, we still have 4 points left to address to create the "perfect" navigation system for the terminal

What I Want

~~sessions that last even when i close my terminal~~
multiple running sessions, and these sessions are based on directory
~~"tabs" within a session~~
navigate to any session by directory name "instantly"
navigate to any session by directory with fuzzy find
run scripts or whatever programs i want when navigating to a directory

Lets Address Point 6 First

This is one of the easier points to address (a bit weird)

6. run scripts or whatever programs i want when navigating to a directory

opens and creates the configuration you want for a project ** gimp **

Opener script

#!/usr/bin/env bash

if [[ -x ./.ready-tmux ]]; then
    ./.ready-tmux
elif [[ -x ~/.ready-tmux ]]; then
    ~/.ready-tmux
fi
clear

Thats pretty cool?

That was pretty awesome that we can create all the windows / splits we want with a simple script (don't worry, it'll get a lot better)

Progress

We have checked off another component of what I consider a great terminal experience

But we still have a few left

multiple running sessions, and these sessions are based on directory

navigate to any session by directory name "instantly"

navigate to any session by directory with fuzzy find

Detour time

FZF is an incredible tool for fuzzy finding. Its not just for finding directories. You can fuzzy find on anything you pass in and is often used within text editors.

I will add fzf to my scripts

dev-env/runs/libs

# ... other libs i install ...

git clone git@github.com:junegunn/fzf.git $HOME/personal/fzf
$HOME/personal/fzf/install

dev-env/env/.zsh_profile

## All that sweet sweet fzf
[ -f ~/.fzf.zsh ] && source ~/.fzf.zsh

Execute

Make sure i only run my libs script run --dry libs

Run my lib script run libs

Copy all of my files over dev-env

Test run

try pressing C-r (Control + r) and it should bring up a beautiful fuzzy find comparatively to your standard C-r from the terminal

Playing with FZF

input

➜  dev-prod-2 git:(main) ✗ echo "1\n2\n3" | fzf

output

  3
  2
▌ 1
  3/3 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
>

Lets solve the last problems

multiple running sessions, and these sessions are based on directory

navigate to any session by directory name "instantly"

navigate to any session by directory with fuzzy find

Some notes

We don't want to search every directory on the file system, we want to have some sort of subset.
We want to navigate based on the results of FZF

CODE TIME!!

Lets start this MF script (MF = Mother FZF):

get a selected directory from fzf.
create a clean tmux session name

Expected Code

#!/usr/bin/env bash

selected=$(find ~/personal -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d | fzf)
if [[ -z "$selected" ]]; then
    exit 0
fi
selected_name=$(basename $selected | tr ".,: " "____")
echo "selected!! $selected -- selected_name $selected_name"

Lets make the script gooooood

if there is, navigate to that session
if there is not, create that session and navigate to it

Expected Code

#!/usr/bin/env bash

selected=$(find ~/personal -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d | fzf)
if [[ -z "$selected" ]]; then
    exit 0
fi
selected_name=$(basename $selected | tr ".,: " "____")

switch_to() {
    if [[ -z "$TMUX" ]]; then
        tmux attach-session -t $selected_name
    else
        tmux switch-client -t $selected_name
    fi
}

if tmux has-session -t="$selected_name"; then
    switch_to
else
    tmux new-session -ds $selected_name -c $selected
    switch_to
fi

Remember our previous scriptedy-tmux

It would be nice if we could combine our two scripts...

Next Expected Script

#!/usr/bin/env bash

selected=$(find ~/personal -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d | fzf)
if [[ -z "$selected" ]]; then
    exit 0
fi
selected_name=$(basename $selected | tr ".,: " "____")

switch_to() {
    if [[ -z "$TMUX" ]]; then
        tmux attach-session -t $selected_name
    else
        tmux switch-client -t $selected_name
    fi

    tmux send-keys -t $selected_name "ready-tmux"
    tmux send-keys -t $selected_name "welcome to fem"
}

if tmux has-session -t="$selected_name"; then
    switch_to
else
    tmux new-session -ds $selected_name -c $selected
    switch_to
fi

How do i execute this?

we copy it to a $PATH location
we can create a tmux shortcut to execute it

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