chelsea-code's tmux Configuration

Setup

Install tmux depending on your platform.
More info on tmux
Install zsh:
sudo apt-get install zsh

More info on zsh.
Download install tmux plugin manager to your user's .tmux directory:
git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm

More info on tpm plugins.
Create a .tmux.conf file in your user's home directory and paste and save the contents of .tmux.conf in the file.
Update the path to the zsh binary in the set command under the default shell comment. You can get the path by running which zsh.
Start (and name) a tmux session:
tmux new -s mysession

You can leave the session with: prefix+d (Ctrl+a+d) or simply close the terminal application. (clicking the X of a Microsoft terminal application, for example)

You can re-enter this session in the future with:
tmux a -t mysession

If you happen to close a session with the exit command, it will be terminated and you will need to create a new session.

Use the command tmux ls to view all available sessions.

For ease of usability, I set my terminal settings to run tmux a -t mycoolsession || tmux new -s mycoolsession when a new terminal is opened, or add the following to the end of my .bashrc file, incase I accidentally terminate the session or dettach it unintentionally:

if [ ! "$TMUX" ]; then
        tmux attach -t mycoolsession || tmux new -s mycoolsession
fi

If prompted to configure zsh, select option (2) Populate your ~/.zshrc with....
Install oh my zsh: sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)" More info on oh my zsh
Set your oh my zsh theme to one of these by updating the value for ZSH_THEME= in your user's .zshrc file. I recommend "avit" for this configuration. You may also need to uncomment the line near the top for exporting $PATH for these settings to kick in.

Changes to Default Key Bindings

See this cheat sheet for default commands/key bindings.

tmux Command Prefix

Note: When you use the prefix with key combinations, the prefix should not be held down while entering the key combinations.

The default prefix for tmux commands is usually Ctrl+b. This configuration uses Ctrl+a because I find it more comfortable to use.

For ultimate comfort, remap your CAPSLOCK key to ESC on tap and Ctrl on hold! (tmux does not seem to allow you to do this using tmux config, so it must be done at the OS level)

Scrolling

Scrolling should work as if you were scrolling in any other window of text in a GUI.

Copy / Paste

This configuration allows you to hold down shift with any key combination / mouse click to escape tmux's interpretation of the action. So to copy and paste, you could hold shift while selecting the text with your mouse, and then press SHIFT+Ctrl+C/V to copy/paste.

Switching tmux Windows

Switch between tabs with prefix+LeftOrRightArrowKey(Ctrl+a+ArrowKey) or prefix+TabNumber (Ctrl+a+TabNumber).

Splitting a Window Vertically / Horizontally

Press prefix+- (Ctrl+a+-) to split horizontally or prefix+| (Ctrl+a+Shift+\) to split vertically.

Refreshing tmux Config

Reload settings from .tmux.conf with prefix+r (Ctrl+a+r).

Troubleshooting

You got an error about plugins when starting tmux

You probably did not install tmux package manager correctly. (See step #2 above)

tmux automatically exits when you try to start it

The path to zsh is probably not correct in the .tmux.conf file. (See step #4 above)

Some characters are showing as question marks / squares / etc

The oh my zsh theme you are using is using characters that are incompatable with your current font. Change your terminal font settings to a font that works with your theme.

Colors

This configuration uses 256 (Xterm) colors.

chelsea-codes/tmux-config