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Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

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Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#31

Post by apjana »

aaronjanse wrote: post #2

Hey HN, I'm a long-time user of i3 (now sway). I wrote this tool to provide the elegance of i3 to terminal users everywhere, especially for people like myself who sometimes use a non-i3 wm or no window manager at all (e.g. when testing code on a bare-bones raspberry pi). Cheers!

In my experiments for a good multiplexer to go with nnn https://github.com/jarun/nnn, I have tried dvtm and tmux. dvtm is extremely light but it appears there's no way to open a new command in a new pane from within a session. This is where tmux trumped.

So if I want to open 2 panes, I run

  dvtm n n # n is aliased to nnn + some program options
But if I want to open text/image files detached in a new pane, my custom opener calls:

  tmux split-window -h "vim \"$*\""
Can 3mux do both for me?

  - present a lightweight multiplexer
  - support options to open split windows and run a command
Note: This is not necessarily i3-specific, please consider cross-DE/WM scenarios.

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#32

Post by cptnapalm »

nurbel wrote: post #28
cptnapalm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just used the PPA. Looks very nice. Has some very nice defaults. Super-Shift-? to get the keybinds was a great idea. I did hit one snag: I can't figure out how to run any actual programs. With the remapping of Super-d to pull up display settings, I am not seeing anything that will pop up an equivalent to dmenu.

it should be on super-space. and super-enter creates an new terminal.

I saw that on the web page. All I needed to know, minus how to get the bar on the top. The Action|Keybinding menu that comes up on first launch is simply too tall to fit on my laptop screen; the most important section Launch is off screen if I don't close several of the others. All in all, though, I'm very impressed with it.

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#33

Post by [deleted] »

JdeBP wrote: post #22

The quality of a terminal multiplexor is is in part determined by the quality of the terminal emulation. Unfortunately, this one leaves a lot out. * The ECMA-35/ECMA-48 escape sequence and control sequence processing is wrong. It is a common error made by people who have read escape sequence lists, but the actual way to process output to a terminal involves a proper state machine, which handles all sequences, even un…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#34

Post by kentt »

hestefisk wrote: post #21

This is awesome. Thank you. Speaking of i3 I would love to use it but it doesn’t really work well on a 4K screen. Any thoughts on how to make it work?

I'd love to help you solve your issue with i3wm and 4k screens. I'm using i3wm on a 4k monitor for my desktop and 3k for my laptop so I should be able to help you.

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#36

Post by aaronjanse »

kentt wrote: post #35

Is this mostly for using w/o i3? I feel like I'm not missing much by using regular terminal windows and letting i3 manage those windows, but I'd love to find out I'm missing something awesome.

> Is this mostly for using w/o i3?

Yep! I can't think of anything magical that could arise from usage with i3, but I'm open to ideas.

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#37

Post by aaronjanse »

JdeBP wrote: post #22

The quality of a terminal multiplexor is is in part determined by the quality of the terminal emulation. Unfortunately, this one leaves a lot out. * The ECMA-35/ECMA-48 escape sequence and control sequence processing is wrong. It is a common error made by people who have read escape sequence lists, but the actual way to process output to a terminal involves a proper state machine, which handles all sequences, even un…

Thank you so much for this very helpful list. I'll integrate its suggestions into 3mux.

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#38

Post by aaronjanse »

krat0sprakhar wrote: post #9
aaronjanse wrote: post #2

Hey HN, I'm a long-time user of i3 (now sway). I wrote this tool to provide the elegance of i3 to terminal users everywhere, especially for people like myself who sometimes use a non-i3 wm or no window manager at all (e.g. when testing code on a bare-bones raspberry pi). Cheers!

Looks awesome, thanks for sharing! I've been using Byoyu[0] which has a similar goal, but I'm keen on trying out. Even though I've been a long-time tmux user, as a developer I don't even know where I would start if I wanted to build my own terminal multiplexer. Can you share some resources etc on what could a good starting point if I want to explore this as a side-project? [0] https://www.byobu.org/

My understanding is that a terminal multiplexer consists of three parts: 1. Managing shells and windows 2. Parsing the ECMA-35/ECMA-48 escape/control sequences 3. Rendering the shells' parsed output within their window boundaries

> Can you share some resources etc on what could a good starting point if I want to explore this as a side-project?

I'm still looking for resources myself. Check out JdeBP's comment for some good information https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22847168

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#39

Post by cptnapalm »

reachtarunhere wrote: post #17
tveyben wrote: post #16

Excellent!!! I think this is exactly what I have been wishing for (fro quite some time now)! I am not quite ready to make the switch to i3 as a WM, (I'm still fairly 'new' in the Ubuntu world, so still need the GUI to help me find settings that I don't know the name of thus how to access via a CLI) this brings me all the great features for my terminal (just like you stated). This is now the first item on my TODO list…

You should give https://regolith-linux.org/ a try. It's a Ubuntu based distro with i3 as WM. They have polished a few things here and there so you have icons for WiFi and easy access to settings.

Despite my initial speed bump, this is now my window manager on both my laptop and desktop. This thing is terrific. Thank you.

Re: Show HN: Terminal Multiplexer Inspired by I3

#40

Post by reachtarunhere »

cptnapalm wrote: post #32
nurbel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it should be on super-space. and super-enter creates an new terminal.

I saw that on the web page. All I needed to know, minus how to get the bar on the top. The Action|Keybinding menu that comes up on first launch is simply too tall to fit on my laptop screen; the most important section Launch is off screen if I don't close several of the others. All in all, though, I'm very impressed with it.

Glad that your enjoying it. Just add these lines to ~/.config/i3/config and reset. That should get the bar on the top.

  # Start i3bar to display a workspace bar
  bar {
    position top
    status_command i3status
  }
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