zellij VS tmux

Having a common set of tools already set up in different windows or sessions in Tmux or Zellij is obviously an option, but there is a subset of us ( 👋 ) that would rather just have fingertip access to our common tools inside of our editor.

Of my series of PRs, I suspect the third (i.e. https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/pull/3043) is most likely to have an effect. But if it does it'd only be as a side effect unfortunately - my focus was on fixing lag with splitting of extremely long lines.

From what I saw while making my changes, that area of the code has a bunch more possible optimisations, but it's 'good enough' for me at this point so I'm not planning to continue pulling at the thread right now. If you wanted to look yourself, I left the script I used for benchmarking and profiling in https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/2622#issuecommen...

For this reason, and because I think the Zellij project is interesting, I currently use a combination of Alacritty and Zellij, as I consider the risk of OSC52 in my use case to be relatively low.

Hot to run a script on a keybind

Wait until you hear about Zellij

I entered a comment ( https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/1625#issuecommen... ) before I read your comment here. Please let me know if that is sufficient.

We do support attaching and detaching. And persisting sessions to disk (and indeed, to any serializable form) is being worked on: https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij/issues/575

tmux is a powerful terminal multiplexer that enhances productivity by allowing session persistence, window and pane management, and customization through key bindings and configuration files. It supports scripting for automation, facilitates collaboration with shared sessions, and integrates well with various shells and tools.

Tmux

Configure the frontend Open up a new terminal. P.S. We can split the terminal session using tmux or run it as a system service, but to keep things fairly simple, we would leave the backend running in one terminal and open another terminal for the frontend.

I have been using tmux for a while now. It was really worth it, especially after I started using neovim. One thing was really missing though compared to my previous setup and that was opening URLs. I always used my mouse to do that, but now I couldn't even do that because I am using the good old xterm as a terminal which doesn't have a built in feature like that.

If the cursor is located on a number, the shortcuts +a and +x increments/decrements that number. Not only do I not have any use for this behaviour, +a is also used to control tmux, which I normally use together with neovim.

I said multiplexer didn't I? tmux to be exact. Another game-changer for me. The beauty of using tmux is that I can create sessions, panes, and windows that can then be moved, split, detached, and everything in between. I also have Neovim shortcuts built in so that I can easily move with hjkl which if you know Neovim, that's life.

> tmux/screen do not break copy-paste

Tmux breaks interacting with the clipboard so much that it has its own dedicated Wiki page dealing with all of the different issues and settings: https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/Clipboard

If so, tmux in control mode [1] plus iTerm2 could be what you're looking for. You would use the -CC flag when starting tmux either locally or on a remote host.

This brings all the niceties of an iTerm shell session, but still allow you to detach from tmux and reattach at a later point whilst still using the native iTerm features. Almost indefinite scrollback, as you mentioned. Also good terminal search facilities, and features to filter text in the session to display only lines that contain a keyword. Instant Replay lets you drag a slider and replay old TUI output that may have been erased from the screen [2]. And the configurable hotkeys are very convenient for pane splitting, which I find to be more convenient than the leader-plus-command of tmux. I find the toolbelt window useful, and sometimes define snippets of long cumbersome commands where it isn't possible or maybe appropriate to define aliases on a remote host. For local tmux sessions, I like some of the features of the iTerm shell extensions, like jumping back to the points of previous commands entered, which helps navigate through large amounts of console output. Or the directory name picker based on frecency, which is useful for adding directory names when composing long commands or to jump to a directory when using Zsh (which lets you omit the 'cd' command).

[1] https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/Control-Mode

[2] https://iterm2.com/features.html

You can follow this guide to install Tmux on your system: Tmux Installation Guide

"Nvim 0.10 can now use the OSC 52 escape sequence to write to (or read from) the system clipboard."

This is a big deal! (it shouldn't be, but it is)

My main complaints about vim/emacs in the past was at the sheer complexity of getting something that should not even be a concern (clipboard integration) working properly, when other text/code editors did not have this problem at all.

Searching online, it seems like tmux has some nice documentation related to OSC 52 usage:

https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/Clipboard

I will be playing around with this for a bit to understand it more. But honestly, this is the sort of thing that should "Just Work TM".

"VTE terminals (GNOME terminal, XFCE terminal, Terminator) do not support the OSC 52 escape sequence."

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vte/-/issues/2495

That's a shame, but I'm not against using a different terminal emulator. Up until now I did not really have a good reason to.