tmux-devours-a-bar

Create side and top bars in tmux easily, along with a "devour" style command.

You can see a larger version of the demo with the included MKV file.

Contents

1. About
2. License
3. Prerequisites
4. Installation
5. Usage
6. TODO

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1. About

These three scripts (called TDAB for short) will create side or top bars (or a "devour" style new pane) that run a command inside tmux. See the image above to get an idea of what this means.

The name is a play on "A blank walks into a bar", because puns.

2. License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. For the full license, see LICENSE.

3. Prerequisites

• tmux
• bash

These scripts will probably work in other shells, but I don't know for sure.

4. Installation

Clone or download the repository. Put the scripts (or symlinks to the scripts) in your $PATH. (In the example above, I've symlinked them to sidebar, topbar, and devour.)

If you wish to change the width or height of the sidebar/topbar, you will need to edit this line:

tmux resize-pane -t "$c_pane" -R 30

which actually resizes the larger pane from the center line. My screen that I used for the demo is 194 columns wide, so when it's first split, it's 97/96 columns wide, then resizes it to the right an additional 30 columns so that I end up with a 127/67 split. The same thing goes for the topbar, except it resizes upward (-U). Adjust so that they work for your terminal size.

Tip for Devour

I find a binding like the following very useful when using devour:

bind-key -n C-/ select-pane -R \;\ resize-pane -Z

This will allow you to cycle among the zoomed panes - and will zoom each as you go through it. Very nice for programs like emojin.

5. Usage

SCRIPTNAME [program to run]

For example, tmux-sidebar.sh man man will show you the man page for man in the sidebar.

If the first argument is either -h or --hold then TDAB will pause after executing the program and wait for you to hit a key (necessary for programs that exit immediately, which triggers the pane closing).

If you run the scripts outside of tmux, it will just run the command.

tmux_devour.sh

Launch a process in a new pane, zoom the pane, kill the pane when done.

tmux_sidebar.sh

Create a sidebar (e.g. for reading manpages) and kill when done.

tmux_topbar.sh

Create a vertical split and kill when done.

6. TODO

• Have a configurable size modifier so nobody needs to edit the script.