What is the best default key binding for tmux and why if one sometimes uses emacs and sometimes uses vim (on Linux Mint 12)? Ctrl-b is OK, but that conflicts a bit with the bash shell and emacs.
7 Answers
I found a good answer in a related post: What's the least conflicting prefix/escape sequence for screen or tmux?
And I've gone with Ctrl-\. Below is my ~/.tmux-conf:
set-window-option -g mode-keys vi
set-window-option -g window-status-current-bg blue
set-window-option -g automatic-rename on
set-option -g status-keys vi
set-option -g history-limit 100000
set-option -g base-index 1
set-option -s escape-time 0
setw -g mode-mouse on
set-option -g mouse-select-pane on
# We won't worry about sending C-\ to any programs
# bind-key C-\ send-prefix
# hit C-\ twice to go to last window
bind-key C-\ last-window
bind-key b set-option status
bind-key / command-prompt "split-window 'exec man %%'"
# vim's definition of a horizontal/vertical split is reversed from tmux's
bind s split-window -v
bind v split-window -h
# move around panes with hjkl, as one would in vim after pressing ctrl-w
bind h select-pane -L
bind j select-pane -D
bind k select-pane -U
bind l select-pane -R
# resize panes like vim
bind < resize-pane -L 10
bind > resize-pane -R 10
bind - resize-pane -D 10
bind + resize-pane -U 10
# C-b is not acceptable, due to emacs, bash, and vim
unbind-key C-b
set-option -g prefix C-\
-
This doesn't work out of the box for Mac. I went back to Ctrl-a, and switched to vim bindings and evil-mode for emacs, so I don't hit ctrl-a anymore for beginning of line. Jan 23, 2013 at 5:57
I strongly prefer C-]
, which doesn't conflict with vi bindings, and conflicts with the default abort-recursive-edit
binding in Emacs. I use that rarely enough, and in nasty enough circumstances, that typing it twice isn't a big drama.
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In context to " which doesn't conflict with vi bindings ", it does if you use tags.
:h tagsrch.txt
and:h CTRL-]
Aug 31, 2023 at 17:02
I have been using Ctrl-/ for a while and haven't found to conflict with anything at least in vim/bash. I don't use emacs so I don't know if it conflicts with anything important in it.
Also a small note I believe I had to bind it to C-_ to get it to work since that is the actual key it sends.
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C-\ and C-_ are definitely different characters; respectively, they are 0x1C “File Separator” and 0x1F “Unit Separator”. See the table in Wikipedia’s ASCII control characters. Jan 26, 2012 at 3:26
I use C-\. Note that you need to escape it with single quotes:
unbind-key C-b
set-option -g prefix C-'\'
The best solution I've come across for this is using just `. The only place this causes me problems is pasting in code directly (with system buffers), otherwise it's the perfect solution.
set -g prefix `
bind-key ` send-prefix
Another good idea is to go for M-F3
.
It doesn't conflict with emacs and vi, the combinaison is rather convenient, is it' rather closed to the M-F2 and M-F1 used for run command and virtualdesktops menu.
[I'm using emacs, and starting some vim (inside emacs for now) and using linuxMint cinnamon for distro]