Is there a way to disable closing panes in Tmux?

Question

I am using tmuxinator. Here is my project file.

project_name: Network
project_root: ~/Code/Network
tabs:
  - editor: vim
  - worker: 
      layout: cd49,181x48,0,0[181x5,0,0{90x5,0,0,90x5,91,0},181x42,0,6]
      panes:
        - QUEUE=high,normal,low rake resque:work
        - 
        - 
  - console: rails c

Below is a worker tab

Is there a way to disable only for this tab closing panes? I would like to prevent this:

Answer 1

You probably want to set the window option remain-on-exit to true for that window. I do not use tmuxinator, so I do not know whether/how this can be cleanly configured in that context. Here is how you would use a plain tmux command to set it for an existing window named worker:

tmux set-option -w -t :worker remain-on-exit on

This is a window option, so it will apply to all the panes in that window. After a pane’s command has exited, you can use respawn-pane to start its command anew.

tmux respawn-pane -t :worker.0

(Or Prefix:respawn-pane to respawn the current pane.)

This may not do what you expect, though, since tmuxinator seems to always create “default” panes/windows and then “type in” your configured command (i.e. the command restarted by respawn-pane will be a plain shell, not the command configured for the pane in your tmuxinator configuration). You may want to run your command in a loop instead (in your tmuxinator configuration):

while :; do QUEUE=high,normal,low rake resque:work; printf 'Hit enter to re-run... (C-c to abort)'; read; done