Tips for using Tmux more efficiently
Enter in copy mode
By default Tmux uses the emacs key-bindings, to make a selection you
need to enter in copy-mode by pressing Ctrl+b and then [ with Ctrl+b
being the tmux prefix key, if you changed it then do the replacement
while reading.
If you need to quit the copy-mode, type Ctrl+C.
Make a selection
While in copy-mode, selects your start or ending position for your
selection and then press Ctrl+Space to start the selection. Now, move
your cursor to select the text and press Ctrl+w to validate.
Paste a selection
When you want to paste your selection, press Ctrl+b ] (you should not
be in copy-mode for this!).
Make a rectangular selection
If you want to make a rectangular selection, press Ctrl+space to
start and immediately, press R (capitalized R), then move your cursor
and validate with Ctrl+w.
Output the buffer to X buffer
Make a selection to put the content in tmux buffer, then type
tmux save-buffer - | xclip
You may want to look at xclip (it’s a package) man page.
Output the buffer to a file
tmux save-buffer file
Load a file into buffer
It’s possible to load the content of a file inside the buffer for
pasting it somewhere.
tmux load-buffer file
You can also load into the buffer the output of a command, using a
pipe and - as a file like in this example:
echo 'something very interesting' | tmux load-buffer -
Display the battery percentage in the status bar
If you want to display your battery percentage and update it every
40 seconds, you can add two following lines in ~/.tmux.conf:
set status-interval 40
set -g status-right "#[fg=colour155]#(apm -l)%% | #[fg=colour45]%d %b %R"
This example works on OpenBSD using apm command. You can reuse
this example to display others informations.