Tmuxifier

Tmuxify your Tmux. Create, edit, manage and load complex Tmux session, window and pane configurations with ease.

In short, Tmuxifier allows you to easily create, edit, and load "layout" files, which are simple shell scripts where you use the tmux command and helper commands provided by tmuxifier to manage Tmux sessions and windows

Window Layouts

Window layouts create a new Tmux window, optionally setting the window title and root path where all shells are cd'd to by default. It allows you to easily split a window into specifically sized panes and more as you wish.

You can load a window layout directly into your current Tmux session, or into a session layout to have the window created along with the session.

Session Layouts

Session layouts create a new Tmux session, optionally setting a session title and root path where all shells in the session are cd'd to by default. Windows can be added to the session either by loading existing window layouts, or defined directly within the session layout file.

Example

Given we have a window layout file called example.window.sh which looks like:

window_root "~/Desktop"
new_window "Example Window"
split_v 20
run_cmd "watch -t date"
split_h 60
select_pane 0

You can then load that window layout into a new window in the current tmux session using:

tmuxifier load-window example

Which will yield a Tmux window looking like this:

Installation

Manual

Clone the repo to your machine:

git clone https://github.com/jimeh/tmuxifier.git ~/.tmuxifier

Then add $HOME/.tmuxifier/bin to your PATH to make the tmuxifier executable available to you:

In bash & zsh:

export PATH="$HOME/.tmuxifier/bin:$PATH"

In tcsh:

set path = ( "~/.tmuxifier/bin" $path )

In fish:

set -gx PATH "~/.tmuxifier/bin" $PATH

Custom Installation Path

To install Tmuxifier somewhere else than the suggested ~/.tmuxifier, simply clone the repository to your custom location, and ensure the bin folder is added to your PATH making the tmuxifier executable available to you.

TPM

You can also install and update Tmuxifier with TPM:

set -g @plugin 'jimeh/tmuxifier'

Trigger TPM's install command with prefix + I to install Tmuxifier to TPM's plugin directory (default is $HOME/.tmux/plugins).

To use the tmuxifier command, you will need to add the bin directory to your PATH. If you are using the default TPM plugin directory, the bin directory will be $HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmuxifier/bin.

Setup

In bash & zsh:

And add the following to your ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.zshrc or equivalent:

eval "$(tmuxifier init -)"

In tcsh:

Add the following to your ~/.cshrc, ~/.tcshrc or equivalent:

eval `tmuxifier init -`

In fish:

And add the following to your ~/.config/fish/config.fish or equivalent:

eval (tmuxifier init - fish)

Custom Tmux Arguments

If you need to pass custom arguments to tmux itself, you can do so by setting the TMUXIFIER_TMUX_OPTS environment variable. For example to set custom arguments globally:

export TMUXIFIER_TMUX_OPTS="-L my-awesome-socket-name"
eval "$(tmuxifier init -)"

And/or specify dynamically when calling tmuxifier:

TMUXIFIER_TMUX_OPTS="-L other-socket" tmuxifier load-session welcome

Updating

cd ~/.tmuxifier # or where you've cloned tmuxifier to
git pull

Usage

Note: This section needs expanding upon.

For a quick reference on available commands and their aliases, please run:

tmuxifier help

Tmuxifier doesn't come with any layouts, so you'll want to create your own window and session layout files. New layout files are populated with examples and comments explaining what things do. Also, having a look at the examples directory will also give you a good idea.

Window Layouts

First off you'll want to define a window layout:

tmuxifier new-window my-awesome-window

This will create a new layout file called my-awesome-window.window.sh in your $TMUXIFIER_LAYOUT_PATH, and open it with the editor defined in $EDITOR. Customize it as you wish, and save.

You can now load my-awesome-window with the following command:

tmuxifier load-window my-awesome-window

You should now have a new Tmux window open created from your custom and awesome window layout.

Session Layouts

To create your first session layout, run:

tmuxifier new-session my-awesome-session

Same deal as with creating a new window, except the filename ends with .session.sh instead of .window.sh, and the file's pre-populated content looks different. To have your awesome window loaded, add load_window "my-awesome-window" to the session layout next to existing examples.

To load the session layout simply run:

tmuxifier load-session my-awesome-session

You'll now have a new Tmux session with your previously defined awesome window in it.

Configure & Customize

Custom Layouts Path

You can customize the layouts directory used by Tmuxifier by setting $TMUXIFIER_LAYOUT_PATH.

export TMUXIFIER_LAYOUT_PATH="$HOME/.tmux-layouts"

Disable Shell-Completion

Tmuxifier comes with shell-completion for bash, zsh, tcsh, and fish. If for any reason you need to disable it, just set $TMUXIFIER_NO_COMPLETE.

export TMUXIFIER_NO_COMPLETE=1

Tips

iTerm2 Integration

Tmuxifier supports iTerm2's Tmux integration. It can be used in two ways:

• Passing -CC as a second argument to the load-session command. For example:

      tmuxifier load-session my-awesome-session -CC
  

• Setting the TMUXIFIER_TMUX_ITERM_ATTACH environment variable to -CC before calling the load-session command.

Inspiration

• Tmuxifier is largely inspired by Tmuxinator.
• The shell script structure and shell-completion setup is heavily inspired/ripped from the internals of rbenv.

Tmuxifier vs. Tmuxinator

Though Tmuxifier is largely inspired by the excellent Tmuxinator project, it does set itself apart in a number of ways:

• Uses shell scripts to define Tmux sessions and windows instead of YAML files. The benefit is total control over Tmux, but the definition files are more complicated to work with.
• Instead of using a "project" concept, Tmuxifier uses a concept of "sessions" and "windows" just like Tmux itself. This allows you to load a whole session with multiple pre-defined window configurations, or just load a single window configuration into your existing session.
• Tmuxifier is a set of shell scripts, meaning it doesn't require Ruby to be installed on the machine.

Todos

• Improve Readme, specially Usage section.
• Write up a detailed reference for all available layout helper functions.

License

(The MIT license)

Copyright (c) 2014 Jim Myhrberg.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.