blog/tmux-config/

[giscus[bot]]

blog/tmux-config/

tmux is a beast of a tool that I found to be indispensable for my personal
developer workflow, but there's a few things that I have added to my tmux
configuration to enhance the out-of-the-box experience.

https://micahkepe.com/blog/tmux-config/

[ficd0]

Great post :) I'll keep this in mind as a resource if I ever decide to try out tmux again.

Personally, I never really got that into the terminal multiplexer workflow. I'm on a Linux environment where I have a lot of control over my window manager, so personally I find it more convenient to just use my window manager to handle this. Although that doesn't have a good solution for session persistence.

My problem with tmux (and peers like zellij) is that they're unfortunately limited by the disgusting, archaic mess that is terminal protocols. Various emulators may or may not support certain functionality -- it's bad enough trying to get my emulator to play nice with an application, but when tmux is sitting inbetween, troubleshooting this 3-way communication can be a massive pain. Every time I've tried, I encountered some problem with modifier keys for example.

The other gripe I have is performance. Ever since I switched to Wayland and started using Foot instead of Kitty, I've noticed that everything been snappy. When I try using a multiplexer, it feels sluggish, especially inside my text editor where I'm moving my cursor around pretty quickly. I know this isn't the multiplexer's "fault", pe-se, since it basically functions like a translation layer so of course it's going to add some delays, but as the user it doesn't feel great.

In essence, the tabs & panes don't attract me at all, because I feel that my window manager can already do this much better. However, the persistent sessions is such an awesome feature. I'd love to figure out how I can get something like this without needing to use a multiplexer.

Cheers!

[micahkepe]

Yes definitely agree that terminal protocols get messy fast and working around keybinding interoperability is a hassle sometimes. Currently, I'm on MacOS and don't use a tiling window manger like yabai, but instead Hammerspoon with window management keybinds and have been pretty happy so far with performance alongside Ghostty. I'm not too sure about other approaches to persistent sessions besides multiplexors but I'd be curious to explore them. Thank you for the comment!