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Love Your Terminal

blog.andrewhays.net

31–40 of 137 posts

Re: Love Your Terminal

#33
post #26

In my scenario, I have to work on several tabs and splits for one topic/work (say it's Python work), and I usually have 2-3 topics in a day (office related, playing around, and maybe side-project stuff). I'm using tmux, and I tend to have 2-3 tabs for each topic, using only tmux to manage them is painful and ugly: there's too many tabs in the current display, and the default gnome terminal doesn't mix with the looks…

> using only tmux to manage them is painful and ugly: How is using tmux to manage them is painful?

I'm wondering that too. Tmux enables a hell of a lot more than just panes/windows, and looks pretty spiffy while doing it I think. A terminal with no menubars or chrome with tmux inside it is the most elegant, adaptable, and capable configuration I've ever had the pleasure to use.

Re: Love Your Terminal

#35
post #2

use tmux for multiple screens and ditch that xorg garbage.

I don't understand why I'd want to use tmux locally. I'm a huge believer in tmux on remote machines though. Why would I want to use it on my local laptop?

In addition to the obvious multiplexing/windowing/paning, I find it great for creating named "work sessions". I have a short script that creates or attaches (with zsh autocompletion in the case of attaching) tmux sessions while creating a standardized filesystem tree that I use for units of "work", checking out things I need, etc.

This allows me to basically just type at any point `work foobar` and I'll either have a clean slate to start working on foobar, or I will be dropped into an existing tmux session 'foobar' that is exactly where I left off last time. Same 'tail -f'/'watch'es, same Vim sessions, same everything.

Besides regular units of work I usually keep a tmux session around just for database connections or the like, and another for messing around with environment stuff (dotfiles, ~/bin/, etc).

Most of this organization is stuff I used to do with virtual desktops, but I find tmux is wildly better suited for it.

Re: Love Your Terminal

#36
post #26

In my scenario, I have to work on several tabs and splits for one topic/work (say it's Python work), and I usually have 2-3 topics in a day (office related, playing around, and maybe side-project stuff). I'm using tmux, and I tend to have 2-3 tabs for each topic, using only tmux to manage them is painful and ugly: there's too many tabs in the current display, and the default gnome terminal doesn't mix with the looks…

> using only tmux to manage them is painful and ugly: How is using tmux to manage them is painful?

If say I have 2 topics with 3 tabs each, and I want to switch to different topic, I need to move to the 4th tab either by switching tab few times, or knowing the index of the tab to get a faster shortcut. Both, in my opinion, are not simple.

If I combine tmux with urxvt, I can have 3 tmux tabs in a urxvt tab, and another 3 tmux tabs in second urxvt tab, and I can switch context just by pressit shift+left/right, I can also easily realign context with ctrl+left/right.

tmux is awesome, but in my case, it's not so awesome when I have to handle many tabs with totally different context, which is why I combined it with urxvt.

Re: Love Your Terminal

#37
post #31
post #18

I am curious what terminal people use on Windows. I find MSYS to be very good, since it lets me work just as I would on Linux with Emacs-style editing.

Cygwin, with mintty and all the trimmings. Or Clink - https://code.google.com/p/clink/

Clink is just what I need for those times I ahve to use cmd.exe - thank you for the tip!

Re: Love Your Terminal

#38
"While $HISTORY is great, it only retails a certain amount of data."

Unless you have HISTSIZE=100000000; SAVEHIST=100000000 or some such nonsense (-hides-). Using Ctrl-R for history doesn't seem to be slowed down at all by my huge histfile. There are privacy implications if you're hacked/subpoenaed, but it's hella convenient.

Re: Love Your Terminal

#39
post #14
post #9

Cool guide. For beginners I'd also suggest restraint with your dotfiles. It's easy to rush into installing oh-my-zsh and using vim with every plugin you can find, but I found that made for a really confusing learning experience, especially if your config ever breaks.

That's actually why I stopped tweaking things to hell and back, losing my config's was too painful. I usually just go for basic colour tweaks these days. It also makes me more portable and productive when I am using a new or someone else's machine.

I used to be all about portability, too. Worse, I was worried that other people needed to be able to work on my computer. So no Vim or Emacs, and always keep things simple.

You know what? I don't care any more. My computer is my computer. It does not need to work for other people and I don't need to work on other people's computers much. My Emacs loads many plugins, my Visual Studio is using ViEmu, I replaced my Finder and I remapped some keys on the keyboard.

This makes for a crazy confusing experience for anyone who sits down at my computer, but it works for me. And as far as compatibility is concerned, my Emacs init.el will automatically download and install all plugins it finds missing, so setting up a new computer is about as complex as copying one file.

Re: Love Your Terminal

#40
post #38

"While $HISTORY is great, it only retails a certain amount of data." Unless you have HISTSIZE=100000000; SAVEHIST=100000000 or some such nonsense ( -hides- ). Using Ctrl-R for history doesn't seem to be slowed down at all by my huge histfile. There are privacy implications if you're hacked/subpoenaed, but it's hella convenient.

Mine is set _somewhat_ ridiculously large. Just not that large. And it seems like it just gets to be obscene at some point.
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