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@@ -0,0 +1,223 @@ +tmux frequently asked questions + +****************************************************************************** +* PLEASE NOTE: most display problems are due to incorrect TERM! Before * +* reporting problems make SURE that TERM settings are correct inside and * +* outside tmux. * +* * +* Inside tmux TERM must be "screen" or similar (such as "screen-256color"). * +* Don't bother reporting problems where it isn't! * +* * +* Outside, it must match your terminal: particularly, use "rxvt" for rxvt * +* and derivatives. * +****************************************************************************** + +* How is tmux different from GNU screen? + +tmux and GNU screen have many similarities and similar goals but now many +differences. Most things that can be achieved in one can be achieved in the +other, however. + +* What is TERM and what does it do? + +The environment variable TERM tells applications the name of a terminal +description to read from the terminfo(5) database. Each description consists of +a number of named capabilities which tell applications what to send to control +the terminal. For example, the "cup" capability contains the escape sequence +used to move the cursor up. + +It is important that TERM points to the correct description for the terminal an +application is running in - if it doesn't, applications may misbehave. + +The infocmp(1) command shows the contents of a terminal description and the +tic(1) command builds and installs a description from a file (the -x flag is +normally required with both). + +* I found a bug in tmux! What do I do? + +Check the latest version of tmux from Git to see if the problem is still +present. + +Please send bug reports by email to nicholas.marriott@gmail.com or +tmux-users@googlegroups.com or by opening a GitHub issue. Please see the +CONTRIBUTING file for information on what to include. + +* Why doesn't tmux do $x? + +Please send feature requests by email to tmux-users@googlegroups.com. + +* Why do you use the screen terminal description inside tmux? + +It is already widely available. tmux and tmux-256color entries are provided by +modern ncurses and can be used instead by setting the default-terminal option. + +* I don't see any colour in my terminal! Help! + +On a few platforms, common terminal descriptions such as xterm do not include +colour. screen ignores this, tmux does not. If the terminal emulator in use +supports colour, use a value for TERM which correctly lists this, such as +xterm-color. + +* tmux freezes my terminal when I attach to a session. I have to kill -9 the + shell it was started from to recover! + +Some consoles don't like attempts to set the window title. Tell tmux not to do +this by turning off the "set-titles" option (you can do this in .tmux.conf): + + set -g set-titles off + +If this doesn't fix it, send a bug report. + +* Why is C-b the prefix key? How do I change it? + +The default key is C-b because the prototype of tmux was originally developed +inside screen and C-b was chosen not to clash with the screen meta key. + +To change it, change the "prefix" option, and - if required - move the binding +of the "send-prefix" command from C-b (C-b C-b sends C-b by default) to the new +key. For example: + + set -g prefix C-a + unbind C-b + bind C-a send-prefix + +* How do I use UTF-8? + +tmux requires a system that supports UTF-8 (that is, where the C library has a +UTF-8 locale) and will not start if support is missing. + +tmux will attempt to detect if the terminal it is running in supports UTF-8 by +looking at the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE and LANG environment variables. + +If it believes the terminal is not compatible with UTF-8, any UTF-8 characters +will be replaced with underscores. The -u flag explicitly tells tmux that the +terminal supports UTF-8: + + $ tmux -u new + +* How do I use a 256 colour terminal? + +Provided the underlying terminal supports 256 colours, it is usually sufficient +to add one of the following to ~/.tmux.conf: + + set -g default-terminal "screen-256color" + +Or: + + set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color" + +And make sure that TERM outside tmux also shows 256 colours, or use the tmux -2 +flag. + +* Why are tmux pane separators dashed rather than continuous lines? + +Some terminals (such as mintty) or certain fonts (particularly some Japanese +fonts) do not correctly handle UTF-8 line drawing characters. + +The U8 capability forces tmux to use ACS instead of UTF-8 line drawing: + + set -as terminal-overrides ",*:U8=0" + +* How do I make Ctrl-PgUp and Ctrl-PgDn work inside tmux? + +tmux sends modified function keys using xterm(1)-style escape +sequences. However, many applications don't accept these when TERM is set to +screen or screen-256color inside tmux because these terminal descriptions lack +the capabilities for modified function keys. The tmux and tmux-256color +descriptions do have such capabilities, so using those instead may work. + +* What is the proper way to escape characters with #(command)? + +When using the #(command) construction to include the output from a command in +the status line, the command will be parsed twice. First, when it's read by the +configuration file or the command-prompt parser, and second when the status +line is being drawn and the command is passed to the shell. For example, to +echo the string "(test)" to the status line, either single or double quotes +could be used: + + set -g status-right "#(echo \\\\(test\\\\))" + set -g status-right '#(echo \\\(test\\\))' + +In both cases, the status-right option will be set to the string "#(echo +\\(test\\))" and the command executed will be "echo \(test\)". + +* tmux uses too much CPU. What do I do? + +Automatic window renaming may use a lot of CPU, particularly on slow computers: +if this is a problem, turn it off with "setw -g automatic-rename off". If this +doesn't fix it, please report the problem. + +* What is the best way to display the load average? Why no #L? + +It isn't possible to get the load average portably in code and it is preferable +not to add portability goop. The following works on at least Linux, *BSD and OS +X: + + uptime|awk '{split(substr($0, index($0, "load")), a, ":"); print a[2]}' + +* How do I attach the same session to multiple clients but with a different + current window, like screen -x? + +One or more of the windows can be linked into multiple sessions manually with +link-window, or a grouped session with all the windows can be created with +new-session -t. + +* I don't see italics! Or italics and reverse are the wrong way round! + +GNU screen does not support italics and the "screen" terminal description uses +the italics escape sequence incorrectly. + +As of tmux 2.1, if default-terminal is set to "screen" or matches "screen-*", +tmux will behave like screen and italics will be disabled. + +To enable italics, make sure you are using the tmux terminal description: + + set -g default-terminal "tmux" + +* How do I see the default configuration? + +Show the default session options by starting a new tmux server with no +configuration file: + + $ tmux -Lfoo -f/dev/null start\; show -g + +Or the default window options: + + $ tmux -Lfoo -f/dev/null start\; show -gw + +* How do I copy a selection from tmux to the system's clipboard? + +When running in xterm(1), tmux can automatically send copied text to the +clipboard. This is controlled by the set-clipboard option and also needs this X +resource to be set: + + XTerm*disallowedWindowOps: 20,21,SetXprop + +For rxvt-unicode (urxvt), there is an unofficial Perl extension here: + + http://anti.teamidiot.de/static/nei/*/Code/urxvt/ + +Otherwise a key binding for copy mode using xclip (or xsel) works: + + bind -temacs-copy C-y copy-pipe "xclip -i >/dev/null" + +Or for inside and outside copy mode with the prefix key: + + bind C-y run -b "tmux save-buffer - | xclip -i" + +On OS X, look at the pbcopy(1) and pbpaste(1) commands. + +* Why do I see dots around a session when I attach to it? + +tmux limits the size of the window to the smallest attached session. If +it didn't do this then it would be impossible to see the entire window. +The dots mark the size of the window tmux can display. + +To avoid this, detach all other clients when attaching: + + $ tmux attach -d + +Or from inside tmux by detaching individual clients with C-b D or all +using: + + C-b : attach -d |