tmux key bindings

I keep changing between mac and linux, and all is cool except that I realized I’m really clumsy at managing multiple terminal windows. On linux I’ve been using gnome-terminal, and the hotkeys Alt-1, Alt-2, etc. to switch between them.

On Mac that is not available, and I remapped Cmd-[ and Cmd-] to navigate around terminals.

It looks like tmux is what I want, a newer terminal multiplexer that seems to have overshadowed GNU-screen.

After a quick test ride, this looks like it would work for me in giving a unified multi-terminal interface across platforms. Works out of the box on Mac (brew) and Linux.

Except that the keystrokes to switch between terminals are not that hand-friendly: Ctrl-B, 0, Ctrl-B, 1, … hard to type without looking at the keyboard.

The following ~/.tmux.conf will change the default prefix to Ctrl-A (much easier to type with one hand), and the window enumeration to start from 1, so you don’t need to jump across the keyboard to hit that zero.

# remap prefix to Control + a
set -g prefix C-a
# bind 'C-a C-a' to type 'C-a'
bind C-a send-prefix
unbind C-b
# Start windows and panes at 1, not 0
set -g base-index 1
setw -g pane-base-index 1