It provides a lot of functionality, and one basic way to think of it is a way to manage multiple running shells arranged in a number of “windows” + panes.įor tmux, any attempt to communicate directly to tmux involves typing Ctrl-b (we call this the prefix key). It’s rare outside of the terminal to end up in an application where you may not know how to exit. Many people have found themselves in nano because git or arc put them there, even when they have not chosen it as an editor.
Here’s the basic ins-and-(literally!)outs for a bunch of programs, why they can be non intuitive, and why other modern apps aren’t difficult in the same way. They are cross-platform, available on even the most limited environments, keyboard-accessible, and if you’re on a remote host it’s often the best option to accomplish some task.
Interactive terminal programs are particularly difficult and they behave unlike anything else on your computer.Īs intimidating it is to get started, it can be extremely valuable to know how to use these programs. Today, it’s not revolutionary to say, as Apple did in their human interface guidelines, that “people are not trying to use computers-they’re trying to get their jobs done.” In the terminal, it’s just the opposite: for example, people are trying to use tmux to experience the tao of tmux. It’s true that some popular terminal programs were created after this all happened, but there’s a big difference in their philosophy of the user. Even though we’ve gone from mainframes to hobbyist computers to modern laptops, programmers still interact with the terminal in the same way.
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