I installed tmux
to have a clean prompt by displaying information on a status bar. I wanted information on the current branch, AWS environment variables, and meaningful window/tab names based on the currently executed command or current directory.
Existing scripts didn't meet my requirements:
- some had not great update mechanisms. they relied on polling, or on window switching
- some were overly heavy and added unnecessary and painful delay to my shell
- some were overly complicated for a simple task of populating a status bar
- were missing desired features
This script uses terminal escape sequences to update the status bar and window name efficiently using zsh hooks.
Updates are made when the shell prompt is rendered or when a command is executed.
- Lightweight and quick update mechanism with zsh hooks
- Status bar updates even if SSH'd to a machine using the plugin but not running
tmux
- Window names named after current working directory or current running process
- The following items displayed:
- current working directory. git repository path hightlighted if within a repo
- current username@hostname, if ssh'd to host also using the plugin and not running
tmux
withinssh
- current AWS profile, with region displayed if set to a non-default region
- current git tag/branch
- proxychains status (e.g if running
proxychains -q zsh
)
Status bar while SSH'd to my home machine which runs the plugin. In a git repo, with an AWS profile set.
The other tabs in my terminal are: open to /tmp
, running a git
command, and running vim
(aliased to v
).
Add to your .zshrc
source /path/to/zsh-tmux-smart-status-bar/zsh-tmux-smart-status-bar.sh
To have a similar status bar in tmux
to the screenshots, set:
# https://that.guru/blog/automatically-set-tmux-window-name
set -g allow-rename on
set-option -g status 2
set -g status-right ''
set -g status-format[1] ''
set -g status-format[1] '#[align=centre]#{pane_title}'
where #{pane_title}
will have the status bar contents
You can customise the style of your tmux
status bar however you like.
My full config (including options and styling) is available here:
Some helpful resources for learning how to style your bar:
- https://www.fosslinux.com/104470/customizing-the-tmux-status-bar-in-linux.htm
- https://tao-of-tmux.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manuscript/09-status-bar.html
- https://linuxhint.com/customizing-status-bar-tmux/
- https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/tmux.1.html#STATUS_LINE
- https://github.com/itsjfx/dotfiles/blob/master/.config/tmux/conf.d/001-style.conf
- make the window names shorter/more selective around what args are listed, like tmux-window-name
- https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/Advanced-Use#pane-titles-and-the-terminal-title
- https://zsh.sourceforge.io/Doc/Release/Functions.html
- https://github.com/arl/gitmux
- https://github.com/drmad/tmux-git
- https://github.com/mbenford/zsh-tmux-auto-title
- also uses terminal escape sequences as the update mechanism
- https://github.com/ofirgall/tmux-window-name