tmux-plugins.tmux-resurrect/docs/restoring_programs.md

Restoring programs

Only a conservative list of programs is restored by default:
vi vim nvim emacs man less more tail top htop irssi mutt.

This can be configured with @resurrect-processes option in .tmux.conf. It contains space-separated list of additional programs to restore.

• Example restoring additional programs:

    set -g @resurrect-processes 'ssh psql mysql sqlite3'
  

• Programs with arguments should be double quoted:

    set -g @resurrect-processes 'some_program "git log"'
  

• Start with tilde to restore a program whose process contains target name:

    set -g @resurrect-processes 'irb pry "~rails server" "~rails console"'
  

• Use -> to specify a command to be used when restoring a program (useful if the default restore command fails ):

    set -g @resurrect-processes 'some_program "grunt->grunt development"'
  

• Don't restore any programs:

    set -g @resurrect-processes 'false'
  

• Restore all programs (be careful with this!):

    set -g @resurrect-processes ':all:'
  

Clarifications

I don't understand tilde ~, what is it and why is it used when restoring programs?

Let's say you use rails server command often. You want tmux-resurrect to save and restore it automatically. You might try adding rails server to the list of programs that will be restored:

set -g @resurrect-processes '"rails server"'  # will NOT work

Upon save, rails server command will actually be saved as this command: /Users/user/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p481/bin/ruby script/rails server (if you wanna see how is any command saved, check it yourself in ~/.tmux/resurrect/last file).

When programs are restored, the rails server command will NOT be restored because it does not strictly match the long /Users/user/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p481/bin/ruby script/rails server string.

The tilde ~ at the start of the string relaxes process name matching.

set -g @resurrect-processes '"~rails server"'  # OK

The above option says: "restore full process if rails server string is found ANYWHERE in the process name".

If you check long process string, there is in fact a rails server string at the end, so now the process will be successfully restored.

What is arrow -> and why is is used?

(Please read the above clarification about tilde ~).

Continuing with our rails server example, when the process is finally restored correctly it might not look pretty as you'll see the whole /Users/user/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p481/bin/ruby script/rails server string in the command line.

Naturally, you'd rather want to see just rails server (what you initially typed), but that information is now unfortunately lost.

To aid this, you can use arrow ->:

set -g @resurrect-processes '"~rails server->rails server"'  # OK

This option says: "when this process is restored use rails server as the command name".

Full (long) process name is now ignored and you'll see just rails server in the command line when the program is restored.

Now I understand the tilde and the arrow, but things still don't work for me

Here's the general workflow for figuring this out:

• Set up your whole tmux environment manually.
  In our example case, we'd type rails server in a pane where we want it to run.
• Save tmux env (it will get saved to ~/.tmux/resurrect/last).
• Open ~/.tmux/resurrect/last file and try to find full process string for your program.
  Unfortunately this is a little vague but it should be easy. A smart thing to do for our example is to search for string rails in the last file.
• Now that you know the full and the desired process string use tilde ~ and arrow -> in .tmux.conf to make things work.