Years ago I had finally picked up on using a terminal multiplexer as part of my
day to day workflow. I started with tmux having only used screen for one off
server tasks that I wanted to persist across my Internet connection taking a
shit.
Nothing wrong with tmux but I had made the mistake of starting off withtmuxinator which tacks on some pretty solid session management onto tmux.
This was all well and good but because I scripted my windows to be exactly where / how I wanted them, I ended up being shielded from truly learning how to use tmux.
To be more specific, I never actually wrapped my head around how tmux handles windows and panes versus how screen does.
And then I went off the rails decided to simplify my life by abandoning my
over-dependence to package managers and plugins. This eventually led me
down the path of dumping tmux all together and moving to screen as my daily driver.
The major contributing factor, which you will probably find laughable, is that I
really didn’t like the default prefix key with tmux, CTRL-b.
I know it can be reconfigured, but if my first order of business is to reconfigure tmux to use the screen prefix, CTRL-a, which I find to feel more natural, that it makes a whole lot of sense to just use screen instead.
Fast forward a couple of years and I’m still using screen but felt it may be time to re-evaluate things and give tmux a shot without all of the cruft of tmuxinator and actually digging into learning how to really use tmux.
It also didn’t hurt that a buddy of mine was asking me if I remembered how to do something in tmux the other day.
Which sadly, I didn’t.
With that, to get more formally reacquainted with tmux, I put together a little comparison chart of the hotkeys in screen and tmux. Keep in mind, this is not an exhaustive list, it’s the stuff that I regularly use.
There’s also a hard bias towards vi-mode and key combinations that keep me
closer to the home row or require the least amount of keystrokes.
| Action | GNU Screen | Tmux |
|---|---|---|
| Start Named Session | screen -S <name> | tmux new -s <name> |
| List Sessions | screen -ls | tmux ls |
| Reconnect to Named Session | screen -R <name> | tmux attach -t <name> |
| Detach Session | CTRL-a d | CTRL-b d |
| Create New Window | CTRL-a c | CTRL-b c |
| Rename Window | CTRL-a A | CTRL-b , |
| Jump to Last Active Window | CTRL-a CTRL-a | CTRL-b l |
| Jump to Window by Number | CTRL-a <number> | CTRL-b <number> |
| Jump to Next Window | CTRL-a n | CTRL-b n |
| Jump to Previous Window | CTRL-a p | CTRL-b p |
| Show Window List | CTRL-a " | CTRL-b w |
| Show Window Bar | CTRL-a w | n/a, on by default |
| Kill Current Window | CTRL-a k | CTRL-b & |
| Kill Session / All Windows | CTRL-a \ | tmux kill-session |
| Split Horizontally | CTRL-a | | CTRL-b " |
| Split Vertically | CTRL-a S | CTRL-b % |
| Make Split Wider | CTRL-a :resize -h <number> | CTRL-b ALT-← |
| Make Split Thinner | CTRL-a :resize -h <number> | CTRL-b ALT-→ |
| Make Split Taller | CTRL-a :resize -v <number> | CTRL-b ALT-↑ |
| Make Split Shorter | CTRL-a :resize -v <number> | CTRL-b ALT-↓ |
| Jump to Next Split | CTRL-a TAB | CTRL-b o |
| Jump to Previous Split | CTRL-a SHIFT TAB | Navigate with CTRL-b ← → ↑ ↓ |
| Close Current Split | CTRL-a X | CTRL-b x |
| Close All but Current Split | CTRL-a Q | Couldn’t find this one |
| Enter Copy / Scrollback Mode | CTRL-a [ | CTRL-b [ |
| Toggle Copy Selection | SPACE | SPACE |
| Jump Half Page Up | CTRL-u | CTRL-u |
| Jump Half Page Down | CTRL-d | CTRL-d |
| Jump Full Page Up | CTRL-b | CTRL-b CTRL-b |
| Jump Full Page Down | CTRL-f | CTRL-f |
| Jump To Top | g | g |
| Jump To Bottom | G | G |
| Move Cursor Left | h | h |
| Move Cursor Down | j | j |
| Move Cursor Up | k | k |
| Move Cursor Right | l | l |
| Copy | ENTER | ENTER |
| Paste | CTRL-a ] | CTRL-b ] |
| Exit Copy / Scrollback Mode | q | q |
Real talk here, after sitting and messing with tmux a bit to work through these different hotkeys, I think I very well may hang up screen and plunge into tmux head first this new year!
Who the hell knows, maybe I’ll switch to nvim too 😉
