Chapter 4 : Working with Text And Buffer¶

Scrolling Through Output with Copy Mode¶

• To enable copy mode : PREFIX [
• To enable vi style movement add this line in config

#enable vi keys.
setw -g mode-keys vi

Moving Quickly Through Buffer¶

• Utilize vi shortcuts like g, or G and CTRL-b or CTRL-f

Searching Through Buffer¶

• Use vi shortcuts like /{pattern} or for previous search ?{pattern}

Copying and Pasting Text¶

• Go in copy mode and press SPACE and move cursor to end of line/word you want to copy and hit ENTER
• This copies contents into a paste buffer, to print its contents : PREFIX ]

Capturing a Pane¶

• To copy entire visible buffer contents : PREFIX :capture-pane

Showing and saving contents of buffer¶

• Use : tmux show-buffer then to save it save-buffer buffer.txt

Using Multiple Paster Buffers¶

By design, tmux stores a stack of paste buffers.

Now try copying multiple line in paste buffers and list buffers : list-buffers

By default : PREFIX ] always applies paste buffer 0, but we can use choose-buffer to select a buffer before pasting its content.

Remapping Copy and Paste Keys¶

Make the binding same as vim

bind Escape copy-mode
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi v send -X begin-selection
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi v send -X copy-selection
unbind p
bind p paste-buffer

Working with Keyboard on Linux¶

• Install xclip : sudo apt-get install xclip

Now add following lines in tmux

# Prefix Ctrl-C takes what's in the buffer and send to system clipboard via xclip
bind C-c run "tmux save-buffer - | xclip -sel clip -i"

To invoke it : PREFIX CTRL-c

We could also bind it to y key.

# y in copy mode takes selection and send it to system via xclip
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel "xclip -sel clip -i"

To make PREFIX Ctrl-v to paste buffers into tmux windows

# prefix Ctrl-v fills tmux buffer from system clipboard via xclip, then pastes from buffer into tmux window
bind C-v run "tmux set-buffer \"$(xclip -sel clip -o)\";tmux paste-buffer"

Using macOS Clipoboard Commands¶

In MacOS there is already pbcopy and pbpaste to work with clipboard.

Inside of tmux you can execute : tmux show-buffer | pbcopy

or paste the contents of clipboard : tmux set -buffer $(pbpaste); tmux paste-buffer

# Prefix Ctrl-C takes whats in the buffer and sends it to system clipboard via pbcopy
bind C-c run "tmux save-buffer - | pbcopy"

# y in copy mode takes selection and sends it to system clipboard via pbcopy
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X coyp-pipe-and-cancel "pbcopy"

# prefix ctrl-v fills tmux buffer from clipboard via pbpaste then pastes from buffer into tmux window
bind C-v run "tmux set-buffer \"$(pbpaste)\"; tmux paste-buffer"