dwm.tmux

dwm-inspired tiling pane and window manager for Tmux.

Dependencies

dwm.tmux requires tmux >= 3.2.

Installation

Via TPM (recommended)

Add to ~/.tmux.conf:

set -g @plugin 'saysjonathan/dwm.tmux'

Reload and run prefix-I to fetch.

Manual install (legacy)

To install, use the provided Makefile:

git clone https://github.com/saysjonathan/dwm.tmux.git
cd dwm.tmux
make

By default dwm.tmux uses /usr/local as its prefix. To change the prefix:

make PREFIX=$HOME

Ensure that $PREFIX/bin is in your PATH.

To use, source the dwm.tmux tmux config:

echo 'source-file /usr/local/lib/dwm.tmux' >> $HOME/.tmux.conf

Usage

dwm.tmux defines the following command aliases, each with a default keybinding:

• newpane Meta-n Create a new pane and place it in the Main pane
• newpanecurdir Meta-w Create a new pane starting in the same directory and place it in the Main pane
• killpane Meta-c Close the current pane. If the pane is in the Main pane, close the pane and promote the first pane in the stack to the Main pane
• movepane[0-9] Meta-Shift-[0-9] Move the current pane to the specified window
• nextpane Meta-j Select the next pane (clockwise); swaps fullscreen pane in monocle mode
• prevpane Meta-k Select the previous pane (counterclockwise); swaps fullscreen pane in monocle mode
• stackup Meta-J Move focused pane up the stack
• stackdown Meta-K Move focused pane down the stack
• rotateccw Meta-< Rotate panes counterclockwise
• rotatecw Meta-> Rotate panes clockwise
• tile Meta-t Return to tiled layout, exiting monocle if active
• monocle Meta-Space Toggle monocle mode (fullscreen current pane)
• zoom Meta-Enter Place selected pane in the Main pane
• decmfact Meta-h Decrease the main pane space factor
• incmfact Meta-l Increase the main pane space factor
• window[0-9] Meta-[0-9] Select the target window by ID
• newwindow Meta-N Create a new window starting in the same directory as the current pane
• killwindow Meta-X Delete the current active window
• popup Meta-p Display a floating pane popup in the current pane's directory
• incpfact Meta-. Increase the size of the focused pane in the stack, relative to the other panes
• decpfact Meta-, Decrease the size of the focused pane in the stack, relative to the other panes
• resetpfact Meta-= Reset the pfact of the focused pane

Additional keybindings for window cycling are also included:

• Meta-[ Previous window
• Meta-] Next window

Also defined are global options to tweak behavior:

• mfact Main pane space factor, the size of the main pane as a percentage of total window size
• killlast If value is greater than 0, kill pane even if it is the last pane in a window
• monocle Tracks active layout mode; 0 for tile, 1 for monocle. Set automatically but can be read to inspect current state.
• pfact Per-pane stack size factor, scale 1-9, default 5. Higher values give the pane more relative height in the stack

Customizations

Keybindings and default values can be set in a configuration file. When using TPM, these must be set after the run '~/.tmux/plugins/tpm/tpm' line in ~/.tmux.conf.

Examples:

setenv -g killlast 1 # kill pane even if it's the last
set-option -wg @mfact 60
set-option -wg @pfact 4
bind -n M-q killpane
bind -n M-w newpanecurdir

Details

Similar to dwm, windows are always organized as follows:

 ====================================
|                 |        S1        |
|                 |==================
|      M(0)       |        S2        |
|                 |==================
|                 |        S3        |
 ====================================

A large Main pane is placed on the left side of the screen while a stack of smaller panes is placed on the right. The Main pane is always pane 0, while the stack of panes is numbered sequentially in ascending order.