4 ms·

I gave up on it once I discovered https://zellij.dev/ https://zellij.dev/ Just even for how tab and panes are setup, and how it's good for scrolling and text s

• llagerlof 6mo ago
  I used tmux for a few years, until one day I discovered Zellij. With its significantly better UI and overall user experience, I was instantly convinced.
  • nDRDY 6mo ago
    This comment would be a lot more convincing if it weren't in response to one expressing the same sentiment :-)
    • azthecx 6mo ago
      It is actually true though, I only use tmux nowadays when I am SSHed into a server that I need to do some work on. The only issues I've had with it is that sometimes it's hot keys conflict with vim, but you can easily turn it temporarily off with ctrl+ g. If you're already used to tmux I'm not sure you would benefit much from changing, but it definitely has a better out of the box with pane hints, names, and more user friendly hot keys.
      • brewmarche 6mo ago
        Maybe give terminal windows in vim a try? vim is not a terminal multiplexer, but if all you need is multiple terminals windows: :term to open a terminal in a new vim window (or :vert term) Standard window movements apply (by default the window prefix is Ctrl-W), most important are: Ctrl-W,{hjkl} to switch between windows, Ctrl-W,{<>+-} to resize windows, Ctrl-W,{HJKL} to move windows to edges, Ctrl-W,{qc} to (force) close windows Enter normal mode of a terminal buffer with Ctrl-W,N: now you can perform vim motions and scroll the output Enter insert mode with i and you can type into the terminal again In insert mode: Ctrl-W "x to paste register x, Ctrl-W . to send a literal Ctrl-W. If too annoying, you can change the window prefix of vim This goes for vim, neovim also has a terminal mode but it works differently I think
      • pmarreck 6mo ago
        > user friendly hot keys I see everyone complaining about this but as a new tmux user as of a few months ago, I had an LLM assist me with configuring it how I wished and it did a bang-up job. Stuff like using “-“ to split horizontal and “|” to split vertical so you don’t even have to remember it…
  • dummydummy1234 6mo ago
    Can you use zellij over ssh on a remote server?
    • TheTaytay 6mo ago
      Yes you can!
      • ndr 6mo ago
        without running zellij on the remote machine? how?
        • kibwen 6mo ago
          I'm unclear what's being asked. Zellij is just a TUI-based terminal multiplexer like tmux and screen, you either run it locally and SSH within it to a remote machine, or SSH to a remote machine and run Zellij from within the remote connection.
          • Kim_Bruning 6mo ago
            I guess they mean 'have zellij hold your session when you log off/close controlling terminal'. (that would require zellij on remote)
  • fernandotakai 6mo ago
    i tried both and i honestly... i didn't see anything different. i want tmux for three things: 1. easy splits 2. easy scrollback 3. being able to restart a session if my terminal dies given all that, tmux works exactly as expected. what are all these "significantly better ui and overall ux"?
    • Groxx 6mo ago
      There's a number of people who effectively use tmux as their window manager - one terminal window doing literally everything. Locally as well as remotely, but it's more... understandable for remote, where other options are often worse or nonexistent. For them, there's as much variety of desires as for any other window manager, and there are tons of those. But terminal ones are usually significantly easier to configure in wild ways due to having fewer (but more powerful) knobs to tweak, so a fair number choose just one and configure the heck out of it.
    • dcminter 6mo ago
      My terminal (terminator) does (2) and the "easy" scrollback on tmux messes up the ability to scroll with the mouse, at least with default settings. I just tried it in zellij and that doesn't. Since I'm only using a multiplexor for (3) and zellij does that too, I'm already inclined to switch. I know I'd get used to them, but the key combos used by tmux seem very odd choices, even to someone who used to code on a real glass tty!
• hesdeadjim 6mo ago
  100%. Tmux didn’t click for me but Zellij did within 5 minutes. Lifelong Vim user so it felt a lot more familiar.
• dns_snek 6mo ago
  Cool, I'm one of the lucky ten thousand today. Thanks.
  • soraki_soladead 6mo ago
    Context: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ Then, if you're like me and read this years ago, play around with the Light Mode dropdown which was new to me. :)
    • grgergo 6mo ago
      > play around with the Light Mode dropdown which was new to me. :) It's this year's April Fools' joke: https://xkcd.com/3227/ https://xkcd.com/3227/ :P
• KetoManx64 6mo ago
  Same here. I bounced off it a few times because KDE konsole already had built in tab/pane support but once I picked up neovim the key chords for triggering actions just made so much sense compared to the static key binds of Console that I just started using Zellij for tabs and panes within Console.
• garymiklos 6mo ago
  I prefer smux.dev
• christiansafka 6mo ago
  If anyone is looking for a slightly higher level management of persistent sessions, we just launched https://haventerminal.com https://haventerminal.com for Mac
• senderista 6mo ago
  I have been using zmx for the last 2 weeks. It's still a bit buggy (screen repainting) but quite pleasant to use with ghostty. https://github.com/neurosnap/zmx https://github.com/neurosnap/zmx
  • modeless 6mo ago
    Thanks for the report, I heard about it recently and was wondering how buggy it was since it's very new. I'll probably still try it soon.
  • ThisNameIsTaken 6mo ago
    Thanks! Interesting to read the rationale behind it [0] which in short is, try not to use what is basically a terminal emulator within a terminal emulator, and window management should be done by the terminal emulator. I primarily use tmux for session persistence (in ssh sessions) anyhow, and still default to my muscle memory for new tabs/windows in the window manager. I haven't tried it yet. The proof of the pudding will be in eating it I suppose. [0]: https://bower.sh/you-might-not-need-tmux https://bower.sh/you-might-not-need-tmux
• fullstop 6mo ago
  I have a few embedded devices where flash space is limited. tmux is so much smaller than zellij, and it's not even close. Zellij is close to 50 megabytes, but tmux and all dependent libraries (minus libc, it's always there) is about 2 megabytes.
  • rstuart4133 6mo ago
    > Zellij is close to 50 megabytes, That's a Rust thing. It's what happens when you statically link because you monomorphise everything.
    • pmarreck 6mo ago
      One of the reasons I went Zig for now
    • Pay08 6mo ago
      And the Rust practice of everything needing at least 300 libraries. It's slowly getting to JS levels of insanity.
  • mokoshhydro 6mo ago
    Screen is only 280Kb (armv7), statically compiled with curses. That's about 6-9 times smaller compared to tmux.
    • fullstop 6mo ago
      Yes, but I already require libevent and friends. The overhead, compared to "screen" was worth it, and I get split windows.
  • sitzkrieg 6mo ago
    and this is a great example why rust will never be relevant in embedded development that actually matters
    • fullstop 6mo ago
• snthpy 6mo ago
  This sentiment seems to be shared widely. Is there a good conversion guide for tmux users? I tried zellij a couple of years ago when it first got popular and it didn't click for me.
  • baby 6mo ago
    Tried it when it came out on mac and it was super glitchy so I gave up. Also usally tmux is useful when I ssh
  • ndr 6mo ago
    https://zellij.dev/screencasts/ https://zellij.dev/screencasts/ has some starting links, if screencasts do it for you For me the only glitch was some key binding collision with ghostty/aerospace but it works perfectly out of the box on alacritty for me
    • snthpy 6mo ago
      Thanks. I've tried it and I'm a convert. I think part of my resistance initially was that it took up much screen space with borders and such. I learned now that that can be switched off or modified. Didn't go deep yet, just tried the different options from `zellij -l welcome`. I think that should actually be the default startup and then maybe disable or prompt to disable in future.
  • backscratches 6mo ago
    I love the name (from zellige): (architecture) A form of terracotta tilework covered with enamel in the form of chips set into plaster, characteristic of Moroccan architecture.
    • snthpy 6mo ago
      Cool, I didn't know that. It always makes me think of Zellig, the Woody Allen movie.
      • backscratches 6mo ago
• kator 6mo ago
  I tried tmux so many times, could not commit the sequences to memory, but then zellij was just out of the gate, easy to "discover," and then I started writing plugins (rust wasm), and I even submitted a PR which got accepted to support background colors in panes/tabs. I am a monthly donor, I think it has the right balance of community plus the lead dev has a vision, opinionated but open to inputs, and focused.
  • pmarreck 6mo ago
    > could not commit the sequences to memory First thing I did was customize all the input commands and configuration with LLM assistance. Smooth as butter.
• snapplebobapple 6mo ago
  I did the same, however, I recently switched back because zellij has just gotten too annoyingly bloated. I ended up on tmuxp to build my tmux session and autossh to keep me connected to my various ssh sessions and am much happier.
• ori_b 6mo ago
  Once I discovered window managers and graphics, I stopped using half-baked features to emulate them in the terminal. I use tmux to reattach to programs after the network connection dies, and not really anything else. I would welcome a version of it that stripped out everything but that, and just replayed the last few pages of scrollback on reattach.
  • setopt 6mo ago
    > I would welcome a version of it that stripped out everything but that, and just replayed the last few pages of scrollback on reattach. Like `dtach`?
    • ori_b 6mo ago
      Thanks. Dtach is definitely closer to what I want than tmux, I'll be trying it out this week.
  • ssivark 6mo ago
    Check out shpool, whose tagline is "Think tmux, then aim... lower" :-) https://github.com/shell-pool/shpool https://github.com/shell-pool/shpool
  • ndr 6mo ago
    window manager like what though? Mac WM is horrible, I use aerospace to make it tolerable
    • kelvinjps10 6mo ago
      i3, dwm, hyprland etc...
  • dbu21 6mo ago
    I use tmux for everything because I work in a headless VM where a WM isn't available.
    • Zetaphor 6mo ago
• ghshephard 6mo ago
  The only (deal breaker for me ) weakness of zellij - doesn't support copy/paste from the keyboard (from the screen/scrollback) and doesn't support multiple copy/paste buffers. I do that roughly every 60-90 seconds with tmux - so, until the zellij developers relent (they suggest the "proper way" of copy paste is to pipe the data into a text editor and use that - but has the downside of not supporting system copy-paste buffers.) - no options other than to stick with tmux (or fork zellij - but that seems a bit much....)
  • evanjrowley 6mo ago
    Zellij has some controls for how copy/paste is handled. Perhops these could help you in the future? Link: https://zellij.dev/documentation/options.html#copy_command https://zellij.dev/documentation/options.html#copy_command
    • ghshephard 6mo ago
      It does - and we spent an hour or so reading through the code and affordances to see if there might be a possible path. The general response is that this user behavior, selecting/copying/saving-in-named-buffer is a very "tmux" like usage pattern the Zellij authors don't want to encourage in Zellij. Instead -they suggesting bringing your preferred Text Editor (emacs, vim, etc...) and doing the select / copy /paste in that. The problems for me are - (A) I know how to select/copy/paste very well in tmux. Don't have the faintest clue how it's done in a text editor, (B) No (easy) ability to have multiple named buffers if you use a text editor, etc... I summarized them here: https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/947#issuecomment-4015354516 https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/947#issuecomment...
      • gitaarik 6mo ago
        This is also the dealbreaker for me, I use copy / paste from the scrollback buffer all the time. And also quick search through the scrollback buffer. I don't want to first pipe all the output to an editor or pager or something; that messes with the terminal colors, indentation, and it's an extra step, making the whole process slower and more tedious. But I guess Zellij people don't use the keyboard so much for copy pasting. A lot of people just use the mouse.
• clintonc 6mo ago
  <button type="button" class="download-hover" onclick="location.href='https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/releases/latest/download/zellij-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/releases/latest/downloa...'"> linux download </button> Screaming into the void, I guess, but PSA. Don't use buttons for links. In my case, I couldn't right-click and copy the URL, but there are a lot of other reasons not to do this.
  • patates 6mo ago
    It also breaks a lot of a11y tooling. It really helps a lot of people when developers care about semantic html. I personally suggest web devs to install axe devtools [0] in their dev browser profile. Also, LLMs have gotten to the point that even the small local models can help a lot [1]. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/axe-devtools/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/axe-devtools/ [1]: Gemma 4: https://pastebin.com/Mjm1Vx4C https://pastebin.com/Mjm1Vx4C
  • miki123211 6mo ago
    Whether this should be a button or link from an A11Y perspective is... kind of up in the air. There's an argument that links are "portals" that take you somewhere, while buttons cause some action to happen, Whether you treat a file as a resource (which your browser just chooses to save on disk instead of rendering on screen), or whether you treat it as an explicit "download" action, is a matter of semantics I guess.
    • rpastuszak 6mo ago
      <a href='...' download>...</a>
    • em-bee 6mo ago
      you can style a link to look like a button if you care about the difference. but traditionally, references to files are links, and it is up to the browser what to do with them (whether to just download them or to download and then display them). that's what all links are. that's the whole point of hypertext. every link causes the browser to make a request to a server and fetch something. buttons are for activating things, not for downloading.
• semiinfinitely 6mo ago
  I tried zellij and it feels like its ui was designed by someone raised in the world of blade runner 2049
• LinXitoW 6mo ago
  Last time I tried zellij, a bunch of the default keybinds conflicted with default commands, or maybe vim commands, I can't remember. But the "solution" back then was constantly jumping in and out of "locked" mode, where no zellij keybindings except unlock work. Didn't seem worth it, considering the giant footprint in comparison to tmux.
• heavyset_go 6mo ago
  Just use byobu, zellij does weird things, byobu just uses tmux (or screen) and has a sane mouse TUI
• xvilka 6mo ago
  Zellij still can't hide/show the status bar on the fly[1] and doesn't support windows preview in the windows list mode. Just these two (and many more) things are enough to stop me from migrating from tmux. [1] https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/694 https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/694
  • imbnwa 6mo ago
    You can't rebind plugin maps, so the session picker uses my preferred unlock chord to create a session. Dev had no interest in changing that.
• pmarreck 6mo ago
  Tried it. It’s certainly prettier and has a few unique features but a number of corner cases I depend on in tmux simply don’t work so back I went Also, can’t really stand the name.
• moontear 6mo ago
  I really don't like tools that are not distributed via official package managers like apt / apk.
• bigbugbag 6mo ago
  I clicked and instantly gave up on Zellij due to the horrible design fails on the first page supposed to introduce the software to the user. upfront breaking the basic expectation of having a clickable link is enough for me to know that this piece of software is badly designed and is not worth my time.
• btreecat 6mo ago
  Big fan of sane defaults like this. I like tmux, but I no longer spend time customizing it for every server I run it on, only to be tripped up on some new server I haven't set-up yet.
• xylophile 6mo ago
  I love Zellij but it doesn't play well with Neovim. If you try to use both tools heavily (Neovim splits + stacked Zellij panes), your Neovim layouts will get trashed. And if I have to choose between Neovim or basically anything else, Neovim will win. Sadly, these issues are low priority for the main dev. Instead they are focusing on things like serving terminal sessions over the web, which is useless to me if I can't use Neovim in it.