Tmux Tilish

This is a plugin that makes tmux act and feel more like a tiling window manager. Most of the keybindings are just taken directly from i3wm. However, I have made some adjustments to make the keybindings more similar to vim: notably, using hjkl instead of jkl; for cardinal directions, and vim's interpretations of what a "split" and "vsplit" is. There is also an "easy mode" available for non-vim users, which uses arrow keys instead of hjkl.

The plugin has been verified to work on tmux v1.9, v2.6, v2.7, v2.9, and v3.0. Some features are only available on newer versions of tmux (currently v2.7+), but I hope to provide at least basic support for most tmux versions in active use. If you encounter any problems, please file an issue and I'll try to look into it.

Why?

Okay, so who is this plugin for anyway? You may be interested in this if:

• You're using or interested in using tmux, but find the default keybindings a bit clunky. This lets you try out an alternative keybinding paradigm, which uses a modifier key (Alt) instead of a prefix key (Ctrl + b). The plugin also makes it easier to do automatic tiling via tmux layouts, as opposed to splitting panes manually.
• You love i3wm, but also do a remote work over ssh + tmux. This lets you use similar keybindings in both contexts.
• You also use other platforms like Gnome, Mac, or WSL. You want to take your i3wm muscle memory with you via tmux.
• You're not really using i3wm anymore, but you did like how it handled terminals and workspaces. You'd like to keep working that way in terminals, without using i3wm or sway for your whole desktop.

Personally, I made this because I loved the i3wm paradigm and keybindings, but these days I'm mostly using Gnome/Wayland at home and WSL/Windows at work. Now, tmux lets me have a consistent user interface for tabs and splits across both platforms, and this plugin lets me use the (IMHO) more efficient i3wm keys.

Quickstart

The easiest way to install this plugin is via the Tmux Plugin Manager. Just add the following to ~/.tmux.conf, then press Ctrl + b followed by Shift + i to install it (assuming default prefix key):

set -g @plugin 'jabirali/tmux-tilish'

For tmux v2.7+, you can customize which layout is used as default for new workspaces. To do so, add this to ~/.tmux.conf:

set -g @tilish-default 'main-vertical'

Just replace main-vertical with one of the layouts from the tmux man page:

Description	Name
split then vsplit	main-horizontal
only split	even-vertical
vsplit then split	main-vertical
only vsplit	even-horizontal
fully tiled	tiled

The words "split" and "vsplit" refer to the layouts you get in vim when running :split and :vsplit, respectively. (Unfortunately, what is called a "vertical" and "horizontal" split varies between programs.) If you do not set this option, tilish will not autoselect any layout; you can still choose layouts manually using the keybindings listed below.

If you use vim-tmux-navigator, which you should if you're using vim or neovim, see the section at the end of this README for how to integrate it with tilish.

It is also recommended that you add the following to the top of your .tmux.conf:

set -s escape-time 0
set -g base-index 1

This plugin should work fine without these settings. However, without the first one, you may accidentally trigger e.g. the Alt + h binding by pressing Esc + h, something that can happen often if you use vim in tmux. Note that this setting only has to be set manually if you don't use tmux-sensible. The second one makes the window numbers go from 1-10 instead of 0-9, which IMO makes more sense on a keyboard where the number row starts at 1. This behavior is also more similar to how i3wm numbers its workspaces. However, the plugin will check this setting explicitly when mapping keys, and works fine without it.

Keybindings

Finally, here is a list of the actual keybindings. Most are taken from i3wm. Below, a "workspace" is what tmux would call a "window" and vim would call a "tab", while a "pane" is what i3wm would call a "window" and vim would call a "split".

Keybinding	Description
Alt + 0-9	Switch to workspace number 0-9
Alt + Shift + 0-9	Move pane to workspace 0-9
Alt + hjkl	Move focus left/down/up/right
Alt + Shift + hjkl	Move pane left/down/up/right
Alt + Enter	Create a new pane at "the end" of the current layout
Alt + s	Switch to layout: split then vsplit
Alt + Shift + s	Switch to layout: only split
Alt + v	Switch to layout: vsplit then split
Alt + Shift + v	Switch to layout: only vsplit
Alt + t	Switch to layout: fully tiled
Alt + f	Switch to layout: fullscreen (zoom)
Alt + r	Refresh current layout
Alt + Shift + q	Quit (close) pane
Alt + Shift + e	Exit (detach) tmux
Alt + Shift + c	Reload config

The Alt + 0 and Alt + Shift + 0 bindings are "smart": depending on base-index, they either act on workspace 0 or 10.

The keybindings that move panes between workspaces assume a US keyboard layout. As far as I know, tmux has no way of knowing what your keyboard layout is, especially if you're working over ssh. However, if you know of a way to make this more portable without manually adding all keyboard layouts, let me know.

Easy mode

To make the plugin more accessible for people who do not use vim as well, there is also an "easy mode" available, which uses arrow keys instead of the vim-style hjkl keys. This mode can be activated by putting this in your .tmux.conf:

set -g @tilish-easymode 'on'

The revised keybindings for the pane focus and movement then become:

Keybinding	Description
Alt + ←↓↑→	Move focus left/down/up/right
Alt + Shift + ←↓↑→	Move pane left/down/up/right

Application launcher

In i3wm, the keybinding Alt+d is by default mapped to the application launcher dmenu, which can be practical to quickly open apps. If you have fzf available on your system, tilish can offer a similar application launcher using the same keyboard shortcut. To enable this functionality, add the following to your ~/.tmux.conf:

set -g @tilish-dmenu 'on'

Basically, pressing Alt+d will then pop up a split that lets you fuzzy-search through all executables in your system $PATH. Selecting an executable runs the command in that split. When you want to start an interactive process, this can be more convenient than using Alt+Enter and typing the command name. This functionality is currently only available in tmux v2.7+.

Terminal compatibility

It is worth noting that not all terminals support all keybindings. It has been verified to work out-of-the-box on alacritty, kitty, urxvt, terminator, and gnome-terminal on Linux. Note that in gnome-terminal, it only works if you don't open any GUI tabs; if you do so, the terminal itself steals the Alt+0-9 keybindings.

On wsltty (Windows), it works if you disable the keyboard shortcut Alt+Enter in the terminal settings. If you use xterm, almost none of the Alt keys work by default. That can be fixed by adding the following to your ~/.Xresources:

XTerm*eightBitControl: false
XTerm*eightBitInput: false
XTerm.omitTranslation: fullscreen
XTerm*fullscreen: never

Integration with vim-tmux-navigator

There is a great vim plugin called vim-tmux-navigator, which allows seamless navigation between vim splits and tmux splits. If you're using that plugin, you can tell tilish about it to make it setup the keybindings for you. (If you don't tell tilish, it uses fallback keybindings that only work in tmux.)

The process is quite simple. First install the plugin for vim or neovim, as described on the vim-tmux-navigator website. Then place this in your ~/.config/nvim/init.vim (neovim) or ~/.vimrc (vim):

noremap <silent> <m-h> :TmuxNavigateLeft<cr>
noremap <silent> <m-j> :TmuxNavigateDown<cr>
noremap <silent> <m-k> :TmuxNavigateUp<cr>
noremap <silent> <m-l> :TmuxNavigateRight<cr>

You then just have to tell tilish that you want the integration:

set -g @tilish-navigator 'on'

A minimal working example of a ~/.tmux.conf with tpm would then be:

# List of plugins.
set -g @plugin 'tmux-plugins/tpm'
set -g @plugin 'tmux-plugins/tmux-sensible'
set -g @plugin 'jabirali/tmux-tilish'

# Plugin options.
set -g @tilish-navigator 'on'

# Install `tpm` if needed.
if "test ! -d ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm" \
   "run 'git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm && ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm/bin/install_plugins'"

# Activate the plugins.
run -b "~/.tmux/plugins/tpm/tpm"