Tmux Normalmode

If you spend a lot of time in a terminal, tmux "copy mode" is useful. It lets you move around the terminal via vim-like keyboard shortcuts, scrolling and copying terminal contents without reaching for a mouse.

However, even when you set the tmux mode-keys to vi, many of the keybindings are quite different from vim: you e.g. activate it with Ctrl+b [, start selecting with Space, and yank with Enter. In contrast, vim enters normal mode with Esc, starts selecting with v, and yanks with y. There are other minor differences that can be confusing. This plugin makes tmux copy mode more similar to vim normal mode, thus reducing context switching.

Quickstart

To install this plugin via the Tmux Plugin Manager, just add this to tmux.conf:

set -g @plugin 'jabirali/tmux-normalmode'

Keybindings

Specifically, these are the keybindings mapped by this plugin:

Keybinding	Description
Esc	Enter "normal mode"
i or a	Enter "insert mode"
y	Yank selection
v	Select characters
Ctrl+v	Select rectangle
Ctrl+p or [	Previous shell prompt
Ctrl+n or ]	Next shell prompt

Above, "normal mode" refers to tmux copy mode, where vim-like keybindings apply. "Insert mode" is the tmux root mode, i.e. the default mode in tmux. Most other relevant vim keybindings such as Shift+v, Ctrl+u, Ctrl+d, are already supported by tmux by default. See man tmux, specifically under WINDOWS AND PANES.

The Esc binding tries to be smart: it activates copy mode if the current command appears to be a shell (e.g. bash or fish), but passes the Esc binding on to the running program if not (e.g. vim or man). This is because when you are not in a shell, you will most likely be in an interactive (e.g. curses-based) app, and many of those use Esc. The binding is disabled by default, since people that use vi bindings in their shell may not want it enabled. To enable it, you have to specify a whole-line regexp that matches your shell. For instance, to match any command like bash or fish that end in sh, set this regexp to:

set -g @normalmode-regexp '[a-z]*sh.*'

If you want to enter normal mode in a app that does not match the pattern above, you can either use the default Ctrl+b [, or you can map your own in tmux.conf. For instance, I like Alt+y:

bind -n 'M-y' copy-mode

As a bonus feature, if you have a distinctive set of characters in your shell prompt like ❯ or >>>, you can get keybindings to navigate between them. To enable these, add a setting to your tmux.conf describing your prompt:

 set -g @normalmode-prompt '❯'