add or merge Tmux control mode support

[yosefrow]

(Feature request)

Tmux control mode would allow users to connect terminator to a tmux session and represent the tmux session with the Terminator GUI.

As I understand this feature has already implemented at https://github.com/manno/terminator .

I added an issue to that repo as well. So maybe the author will respond and look into merging his code into this main repo.

But if for some reason he is not able to do so, I want to at least raise awareness that the feature seems to exist for those who are interested.

[mattrose]

This looks really good. Hopefully the user who owns the fork will craft a proper pull request against this repo. If not, we'll still look at it, but I personally don't use tmux that much, so any guidance you could give would help. What are people looking for from tmux integration?

[mattrose]

Looking further. Wow, that's a lot of work they've done. Hopefully they'd be willing to work with us, as that terminator code is probably missing all the python3 fixes.

[yosefrow]

@mattrose

TLDR:

I'm sure there are more features that a more advanced user might know about. But personally, I'm looking for the following:

• full integration with tmux windows/panes representation (resizing, display, mouse integration)
• integration with tmux scroll buffer and os clipboard
• integration with tmux pane/operations (e.g. rotate panes, maximize pane etc)
• integration with tmux pane/tab input broadcast (yes, that's a tmux feature too!)
• ability to connect to local or remote tmux session
• integration with tmux status bar (nice to have!)

As an intermediate level tmux user, I think I can best provide an insight by describing my use of tmux.

Because I administrate multiple systems remotely, I find myself more often than not logging into the remote server and then running tmux inside terminator, because otherwise I'd have to ssh many times (every time I opened a tab). Opening tmux inside the remote server, saves me time and headache associated with constantly connecting. But it also allows me to save my sessions remotely and reconnect to them the next day, or between laptop reboots.

Sometimes, even though I have no work to do on the remote server, I actually open a tmux session on the remote server, just because I want to continue where I left off the next day. I know that there are some plugins that allow you to save terminator sessions. But so far I haven't found one that accurately saves the buffer of all active windows/tabs and the window/tab configurations.

Additionally, I appreciate the fact that the tmux status bar allows you to dynamically and contextually display any text you want. It is the closest I've seen to a "task bar" that you typically find on desktop systems and it adds just enough extra benefit, that I can permanently live in my terminal in full screen. For example, you can place small scripts that will add a kubernetes or git context indicator for your current folder, hostname, cpu info, memory usage, clock etc (instead of shoving it on to the end of my already overloaded bash prompt!).

Lastly, even when my entire desktop crashes, my tmux session may survive. So my shell work flow can exist independent of my gui. e.g. If my desktop crashes then just move to a Linux tty and attach to the tmux session I was using in terminator!

[mattrose]

Thanks. This was very instructive and it really does sound like something good to have, and according to https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/189805/what-terminal-emulators-support-tmux-control-mode it's not widely available. I hope the authors of that fork get in touch, because that would be much quicker than me trying to integrate their code.

[yosefrow]

@mattrose

I hope so as well. As I mentioned, I opened an issue in the author's repo. So I hope they will be in touch soon :)

Also, I forgot to mention one of the most interesting features in tmux, which is the ability to share sessions between multiple clients. This means that one user can start a session and multiple people can connect to it remotely (through ssh) or locally and optionally control the session (in the same window, or even a separate window). Basically desktop-sharing for terminals!

I'd love to see this feature supported in Terminator as well through the Tmux control mode :)

[iamjackg]

I contacted the original author of the fork via email, and he said he's going to try and rebase his changes on the new codebase :)

[mattrose]

Oh good. I definitely want more/better tmux integration, but I don't use it enough to know what is important or give it a thorough test.

[manno]

I had to squash all the commits from Dan and Andrea, who did most of the tmux work back in 2016. Sadly I just wasn't able to preserve the commit history when merging.

I created #378, but it is not working. However all the code is there and it only hangs when started in tmux mode. Maybe someone with more knowledge of terminator (and/or tmux control mode) can fix this easily?
Otherwise I'm not giving up on this, might just take a while :)

[theotheroracle]

oh gods yes i'm so hyped for this, might take a look at the code in a bit and see if i can get it working

[iamjackg]

I've been working on an MR for this, but the original code might be a bit too outdated to get working properly.

#408

I started a rewrite of the implementation, but haven't had much time to work on it recently.

[theotheroracle]

oh great ! thanks