Title: How to Make tmux's "Windows" Behave like Browser Tabs
Tags: tmux
Make tmux tabs ("windows") look more like browser tabs, and control them using the same keyboard shortcuts that you're used to from browsers and other apps.
Key bindings
------------
Add the snippet below to your `~/.tmux.conf` file to get browser-like keyboard shortcuts for working with tabs (tmux calls them "windows"):
Ctrl + t Open a new tab.
Ctrl + Page Down, Ctrl + Page Up Go to the next, previous tab.
In browsers Ctrl + Tab and Ctrl + Shift + Tab also work, but I don't think you can
bind `C-Tab` and`C-S-Tab` in tmux.
Ctrl + Shift + ←, Ctrl + Shift + → Move the current tab left,
right (swapping it with the left or right adjacent tab).
In browsers this is Ctrl + Shift + Page Up and
Ctrl + Shift + Page Down but I don't think you can bind `C-S-PgUp` and `C-S-PgDn` in tmux.
Alt + 1 … 8 Jump to tab 1 ... 8.
Alt + 9 Jump to the rightmost tab.
Ctrl + Alt + w Close the current tab.
In browsers this is just Ctrl + w but
Ctrl + w is often used by terminal apps (for example vim uses it for switching between windows).
GNOME Terminal's uses Ctrl + Shift + w but you can't bind Ctrl + Shift in an app
like tmux that runs _inside_ a terminal emulator: Ctrl-modified keys are case insensitive. You can do `bind -n C-W ...` in tmux but the binding will be triggered
by either Ctrl + Shift + w or just Ctrl + w
Ctrl + Alt + q Ask for confirmation before closing all tabs and killing the current tmux session.
Browsers use Ctrl + Shift + w to close the current window and all its tabs and GNOME Terminal (which already uses
Ctrl + Shift + w to close a single tab) uses Ctrl + Shift + q to close
the whole window. You can't bind Ctrl + Shift in tmux so I've used Ctrl + Alt instead.
F11 Toggle the current pane between zoomed (occupying the whole window and hiding all other panes) and unzoomed (normal).
```
set -g base-index 1 # Start numbering windows at 1, not 0.
set -g pane-base-index 1 # Start numbering panes at 1, not 0.
bind -n C-t new-window
bind -n C-PgDn next-window
bind -n C-PgUp previous-window
bind -n C-S-Left swap-window -t -1\; select-window -t -1
bind -n C-S-Right swap-window -t +1\; select-window -t +1
bind -n M-1 select-window -t 1
bind -n M-2 select-window -t 2
bind -n M-3 select-window -t 3
bind -n M-4 select-window -t 4
bind -n M-5 select-window -t 5
bind -n M-6 select-window -t 6
bind -n M-7 select-window -t 7
bind -n M-8 select-window -t 8
bind -n M-9 select-window -t:$
bind -n C-M-w kill-window
bind -n C-M-q confirm -p "Kill this tmux session?" kill-session
bind -n F11 resize-pane -Z
```
Appearance
----------
Add the snippet below if you also want your tmux tabs to _look_ a bit more like browser tabs. It makes the current tab stand out a lot more by having a different
background color:
```
set -g status-style "bg=default"
set -g window-status-current-style "bg=default,reverse"
set -g window-status-separator '' # No spaces between windows in the status bar.
set -g window-status-format "#{?window_start_flag,, }#I:#W#{?window_flags,#F, } "
set -g window-status-current-format "#{?window_start_flag,, }#I:#W#{?window_flags,#F, } "
```
tmux's tabs ("windows") styled to look a bit more like browser tabs.
You can also move the tabs to the top of the window with `set -g
status-position top`, but I find I prefer them at the bottom.
In the screenshot I've also removed the default stuff that tmux puts in the
bottom-left and bottom-right of the window:
```
set -g status-left ''
set -g status-right ''
```
