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by snidane 2253 days ago
This looks awesome!

The modifier key seems to be Alt, which is also default on desktop i3 windows manager. I wonder if it's going to interfere - eg. pressing Alt+Enter will simultaneously open new window both in multiplexer and on my desktop?

3 comments

The default modifier i3 uses is the Super (“Windows”) key. It asks you about this on first start (via https://manpages.debian.org/buster/i3-wm/i3-config-wizard.1....), and if your keyboard does not the the Super key, you can chose Alt as a fallback.
I think the "escape"-design og screen/tmux is likely better for terminal multiplexing - other "hot-keys" is too likely to collide with terminal programs (never mind window managers/desktops)?

I suppose "super"/"windows"-key combos might be a bit safe from terminal applications - otoh they're likely to collide with window managers...

> I suppose "super"/"windows"-key combos might be a bit safe from terminal applications - otoh they're likely to collide with window managers...

AFAIK terminal usually doesn't support super/windows key at all.

> This looks awesome!

Thank you!!

> I wonder if it's going to interfere

My understanding is that i3 would intercept the keypress, not passing it onto the terminal. While I want 3mux to work with i3, I decided to choose defaults that appeal to the audience that would need 3mux most (i.e. non-i3 users). I plan to soon make the key bindings configurable.

Hi again :).

I agree that non-i3 users need it the most, but have one use case in mind where you might want to combine i3wm + 3mux: remote work. If you ssh into a remote computer, you can not easily spawn new remote terminals. Having one terminal that runs ssh + 3mux lets you use i3wm-like keybindings inside the terminal to open remote splits and tabs with similar keybindings as you would locally. In particular, setting the i3wm $mod to super would make super+enter, super+hjkl, etc. act on local windows, while alt+enter, alt+hjkl, etc. act on remote windows. In a sense, ssh + 3mux would act as a "i3wm-style remote desktop".

If I understand correctly, 3mux does not have session management, but combining 3mux with abduco or dtach should solve that. (And arguably be a more Unix-philosphy solution.)

I think the best way to combine i3wm and 3mux would however be to change the i3wm $mod to win/super, instead of trying to use different modifiers in 3mux. As far as I know, no common terminals support other modifiers than ctrl and alt, and ctrl would collide with most terminal programs. (In tilish, I ended up offering a prefix key as an alternative to alt for people using Kakoune or Emacs.)