vimux

Easily interact with tmux from vim. This project is still in development, so some features are still missing.

What inspired me to write vimux was tslime.vim, a plugin that lets you send input to tmux. While tslime.vim works well, I felt it wasn't optimized for my primary use case which was having a smaller tmux pane that I would use to run tests or play with a REPL.

My goal with vimux is to make interacting with tmux from vim effortless. By default when you call RunVimTmuxCommand vimux will create a 20% tall horizontal pane under your current tmux pane and execute a command in it without losing focus of vim. Once that pane exists whenever you call RunVimTmuxCommand again the command will be executed in that pane. As I was using vimux myself I wanted to rerun commands over and over. An example of this was running the current file through rspec. Rather than typing that over and over I wrote RunLastVimTmuxCommand that will execute the last command you called with RunVimTmuxCommand.

Other auxiliary functions and the ones I talked about above can be found bellow with a full description and example key binds for your vimrc.

Installation

With vim-bundle: vim-bundle install benmills/vimux

Otherwise download the latest tarball, extract it and move plugin/vimux.vim inside ~/.vim/plugin. If you're using pathogen, then move the entire folder extracted from the tarball into ~/.vim/bundle.

Usage

RunVimTmuxCommand

Run a system command in a small horizontal split bellow the current pane vim is in.

" Run the current file with rspec
map <Leader>rb :call RunVimTmuxCommand("clear; rspec " . bufname("%"))<CR>

PromptVimTmuxCommand

Prompt for a command and run it in a small horizontal split bellow the current pane.

" Prompt for a command to run
map <Leader>rp :PromptVimTmuxCommand<CR>

RunLastVimTmuxCommand

Run the last command executed by RunVimTmuxCommand

" Run last command executed by RunVimTmuxCommand
map <Leader>rl :RunLastVimTmuxCommand<CR>

InspectVimTmuxRunner

Move into the tmux runner pane created by RunVimTmuxCommand and enter copy mode (scroll mode).

" Inspect runner pane
map <Leader>ri :InspectVimTmuxRunner<CR>

CloseVimTmuxWindows

Close all other tmux panes in the current window.

" Close all other tmux panes in current window
map <Leader>rx :CloseVimTmuxWindows<CR>

InterruptVimTmuxRunner

Interrupt any command that is running inside the runner pane.

" Interrupt any command running in the runner pane
map <Leader>rs :InterruptVimTmuxRunner<CR>

Full Keybind Example

" Run the current file with rspec
map <Leader>rb :call RunVimTmuxCommand("clear; rspec " . bufname("%"))<CR>

" Prompt for a command to run
map <Leader>rp :PromptVimTmuxCommand<CR>

" Run last command executed by RunVimTmuxCommand
map <Leader>rl :RunLastVimTmuxCommand<CR>

" Inspect runner pane
map <Leader>ri :InspectVimTmuxRunner<CR>

" Close all other tmux panes in current window
map <Leader>rx :CloseVimTmuxWindows<CR>

" Interrupt any command running in the runner pane
map <Leader>rs :InterruptVimTmuxRunner<CR>

Options

VimuxHeight

Set the percent height of the runner pane opened by RunVimTmuxCommand. Default: "20"

let VimuxHeight = "50"

Todo

The features I would like to add in the near future.

• Add the ability to target any tmux session, window and pane