6 ms·

I prefer tmux to screen but the default key mappings took some getting used to. I've used it long enough that Ctrl-B and " / % for the screen splitting are natu

I prefer tmux to screen but the default key mappings took some getting used to. I've used it long enough that Ctrl-B and " / % for the screen splitting are natural to me now, but initially it was ... rough.

rovr138 7y ago
You could remapped whatever you don’t link. I have Caps Lock set to be Ctrl and tmux set to use Ctrl+a. For a vertical split, I have it mapped to Ctrl+a, |. For horizontal, Ctrl+a, - It’s pretty flexible.
- sooheon 7y ago
  Not sure why ctrl-a and ctrl-b are such popular prefixes, I use both a lot editing readline.
  - lahcim8 7y ago
    Exactly! Have you found any decent replacement?
    - wiennat 7y ago
      I use Ctrl + q
    - tambourine_man 7y ago
      Control-Space is perfect for me
      - flukus 7y ago
        And compliments vim really well if you set your leader key to space.
    - simtel20 7y ago
      I use a backtick, but don't edit much e.g. markdown in my tmux sessions, and always use $(...) for command substitution so I don't normally feel any pain. One oddity with tmux is that to escape the control character you don't press it twice, you press the escape char then ctrl-b, so that is a lot of extra movement around the keyboard
      - fwip 7y ago
        Could you bind prefix + ` to insert a literal backtick? I've only ever used the default ctrl-b prefix so I'm not sure.
      - rabidrat 7y ago
        Backtick is my favorite too. Interestingly I thought it was an obscure choice, but it seems to be the 3rd most popular prefix from an analysis of tmux.conf files on github (after Ctrl+A and Ctrl+Space). I use `` (double-backtick) to escape the backtick and it's eminently reasonable.
    - patrec 7y ago
      I like ^Z, since it's about the only keybinding that's not used by common terminal software. To actually send a program to sleep, just double up: ^Z^Z # In ~/.tmux.conf Change prefix key to Ctrl+z unbind C-b set -g prefix C-z
  - pdpi 7y ago
    I definitely hear you on ctrl-a. No idea what ctrl-b does, though?
    - u801e 7y ago
      It moves the cursor back one character (which is the default readline binding). In screen's case, you can send ctrl-a to readline by pressing ctrl-a a.
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  Forgive me for asking a sort-off-offtopic question, but what's the reason terminals - and therefore the programs which run within them - offer such limited scope for ctrl-key usage. A lot of characters are not available for remapping, such as ctrl-numeric-digit, or ctrl-shift-anything etc. What's the root cause of this? Is it telnet related? ssh? And, assuming there's a compromise somewhere, would it be possible for the problem to be lifted with a config option which says "I'm using this shell locally on my chromebook - please don't inflict this 40 year old restriction on me"?
  - bmn__ 7y ago
    > What's the root cause of this? It is stems 100% from the terminal emulator. Just install a better one. Test your keys with https://metacpan.org/source/PEVANS/Tickit-0.67/examples/demo-allkeys.pl https://metacpan.org/source/PEVANS/Tickit-0.67/examples/demo... Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/JfHjJXy.png https://i.imgur.com/JfHjJXy.png The only key combos marked not ok are global/taken by the window manager, so they don't arrive at the application.

rovr138 7y ago

You could remapped whatever you don’t link. I have Caps Lock set to be Ctrl and tmux set to use Ctrl+a. For a vertical split, I have it mapped to Ctrl+a, |. For horizontal, Ctrl+a, - It’s pretty flexible.

sooheon 7y ago
Not sure why ctrl-a and ctrl-b are such popular prefixes, I use both a lot editing readline.
- lahcim8 7y ago
  Exactly! Have you found any decent replacement?
  - wiennat 7y ago
    I use Ctrl + q
  - tambourine_man 7y ago
    Control-Space is perfect for me
    - flukus 7y ago
      And compliments vim really well if you set your leader key to space.
  - simtel20 7y ago
    I use a backtick, but don't edit much e.g. markdown in my tmux sessions, and always use $(...) for command substitution so I don't normally feel any pain. One oddity with tmux is that to escape the control character you don't press it twice, you press the escape char then ctrl-b, so that is a lot of extra movement around the keyboard
    - fwip 7y ago
      Could you bind prefix + ` to insert a literal backtick? I've only ever used the default ctrl-b prefix so I'm not sure.
    - rabidrat 7y ago
      Backtick is my favorite too. Interestingly I thought it was an obscure choice, but it seems to be the 3rd most popular prefix from an analysis of tmux.conf files on github (after Ctrl+A and Ctrl+Space). I use `` (double-backtick) to escape the backtick and it's eminently reasonable.
  - patrec 7y ago
    I like ^Z, since it's about the only keybinding that's not used by common terminal software. To actually send a program to sleep, just double up: ^Z^Z # In ~/.tmux.conf Change prefix key to Ctrl+z unbind C-b set -g prefix C-z
- pdpi 7y ago
  I definitely hear you on ctrl-a. No idea what ctrl-b does, though?
  - u801e 7y ago
    It moves the cursor back one character (which is the default readline binding). In screen's case, you can send ctrl-a to readline by pressing ctrl-a a.
iamnotacrook 7y ago
Forgive me for asking a sort-off-offtopic question, but what's the reason terminals - and therefore the programs which run within them - offer such limited scope for ctrl-key usage. A lot of characters are not available for remapping, such as ctrl-numeric-digit, or ctrl-shift-anything etc. What's the root cause of this? Is it telnet related? ssh? And, assuming there's a compromise somewhere, would it be possible for the problem to be lifted with a config option which says "I'm using this shell locally on my chromebook - please don't inflict this 40 year old restriction on me"?
- bmn__ 7y ago
  > What's the root cause of this? It is stems 100% from the terminal emulator. Just install a better one. Test your keys with https://metacpan.org/source/PEVANS/Tickit-0.67/examples/demo-allkeys.pl https://metacpan.org/source/PEVANS/Tickit-0.67/examples/demo... Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/JfHjJXy.png https://i.imgur.com/JfHjJXy.png The only key combos marked not ok are global/taken by the window manager, so they don't arrive at the application.