tmux-sidebar-plus

Proof of Concept - tested for tmux >= 2.1

tmux-sidebar-plus is a fast and customizable multi-window tmux sidebar.

An enhanced fork of tmux-sidebar, the system information sidebar is available through the command prefix-b by default.

Features

tmux-sidebar-plus adds the following features to tmux-sidebar:

• multi-pane sidebar
  Allows for multiple panes in a variety of layouts.
• practical default layouts
  Including system monitoring, git tracking
• easily-customizable commands
  Create simple configuration files to manually determine the layout of the sidebar
• layout selection
  Select from a variety of default layouts, or a custom layout, using the layout selector key (default prefix+g)

Installation

Manual Installation

Clone the repo:

$ git clone https://github.com/addisonlynch/tmux-sidebar-plus ~/clone/path

Add this line to the bottom of .tmux.conf:

$ run-shell ~/clone/path/sidebar-plus.tmux

Reload tmux environment

$ tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf

Configuration

tmux Options

option	default	description
@sidebar-plus-sidebar-key	b	Set sidebar toggle key
@sidebar-plus-layout-key	g	Set layout selection key
@sidebar-plus-layout-dir	none	Additional layouts directory
@sidebar-plus-position	left	Desired sidebar position (left or right)

Basic Usage

Opening/Closing

Open and close the sidebar using prefix-b.

Selecting a Layout

Select your desired layout using prefix-g.

Layouts

A number of useful layouts are provided by tmux-sidebar-plus, including:

• default - system monitoring using Glances, htop, or top
• git - git status & log monitoring

Default

Git

Custom Layouts

To add custom layouts, create a directory and set its absolute path to @sidebar-plus-layout-dir.

Formatting

The layout file should be named as desired and follow the below format:

LAYOUT_NAME="git"
PANES=3
MINIMUM_WIDTH="50"

populate_sidebar(){
    local sidebar_id="$1"
    tmux select-pane -t "$sidebar_id"
    tmux resize-pane -t "$sidebar_id" -x "${MINIMUM_WIDTH}"

    # Build & register panes
    local pane_1_id="$(split "${sidebar_id}" "vertical")"
    register_pane $sidebar_id $pane_1_id

    # Run panes' commands
    watched_dir_command $sidebar_id "git status"
    watched_dir_command $pane_1_id "git log --all --decorate --oneline --graph"
    select_base_pane
}

Where MINIMUM_WIDTH is the minimum width of the parent pane required to open the sidebar.

Overriding Default Layouts

It is possible to override the default layouts by specifying a custom layout of the same name. tmux-sidebar-plus will then use the custom layout's configuration file.

Using update_dir.sh

The update_dir.sh script runs a command every 3 seconds. This can be included in any custom layout.

To Do

• Enhanced layout caching (by pane, window, and session)
• Expanded default layouts (pull requests welcome)

Attribution

tmux-sidebar-plus is an adapted implementation of tmux-sidebar written by Bruno Sutic.

Contact

Email: ahlshop@gmail.com Twitter: alynchfc

License

Copyright © 2019 Addison Lynch

See LICENSE for details