In this first installment of our Tmux configuration series, we dive into this powerful terminal multiplexer that perfectly complements tools like Neovim. Starting with the basics, we'll walk through the installation process and explore the fundamental concepts that make Tmux an essential tool for any developer.
I'll guide you through the core structures of Tmux - sessions, windows, and panes - showing you how to create, navigate, and manage them efficiently. You'll learn how these components work together to transform your terminal experience, allowing you to maintain multiple contexts and workflows simultaneously.
The heart of this video focuses on essential quality of life improvements through custom configuration. We'll live-code a comprehensive .tmux.conf file, testing each setting as we go to demonstrate its impact. You'll see how to customize key bindings, improve mouse support, enhance navigation, and solve common frustrations like delay times and history limitations.
By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a solid understanding of Tmux fundamentals and a carefully crafted configuration that makes Tmux significantly more intuitive and powerful. This serves as the perfect foundation for Part 2, where we'll focus on visual customization and theming.
All configuration files demonstrated in this episode are available on GitHub:
🔗 https://github.com/jakobwesthoff/tmux-from-scratch
*Chapters:*
00:00 - Welcome
00:18 - What is tmux?
00:57 - Installation of tmux
01:44 - Running tmux
02:10 - The Statusbar
02:43 - Statusbar: Sessions and Windows
03:40 - Prefix Key
04:09 - Command Mode
04:34 - new-window
04:50 - Switching between Windows
05:12 - Keybinding to create new-window
05:29 - Closing a Window
05:46 - Manpages of tmux
06:10 - Splitting a Window into multiple Panes
08:26 - Hierarchy: Sessions - Windows - Panes
08:55 - Sessions in tmux
09:05 - Creating a new Session
09:21 - Detaching and Attaching Sessions
10:48 - Switching between Sessions
11:08 - Renaming Sessions
12:29 - Quality of Life Configuration from Scratch
13:07 - Changing the Prefix key to CTRL-A
15:34 - Hot Reloading the Configuration
16:14 - Cleaning up after Redefining the new Prefix
17:00 - Enabling sending the "real" Prefix key
20:34 - Start all numbering at 1
22:38 - Renumbering existing Windows
24:26 - Creating a Keybind to Renumber Windows
26:56 - Enabling Mouse Support
27:57 - Detour: show-options Command
28:54 - Back to Mouse Support
30:18 - Copy-Mode and History-Buffer Size
37:04 - Fixing the Terminal Title
40:54 - Open New Windows in the Current Working Directory
49:15 - Enabling focus-events
51:36 - What are Server Options?
54:06 - Enabling extended-keys
55:24 - Disabling Escape key Waiting
57:08 - Base Configuration finished
57:57 - Conclusion and Future Outlook
#tmux #commandline #devops