AwesomeWM - Vim - Tmux Navigator

awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator lets you navigate seamlessly between system windows, vim splits and tmux panes by only using your awesomewm navigation keybindings. Every vim split and tmux pane is treated like a regular system window, allowing you to forget your vim/tmux specific navigation hotkeys. It also works in complex scenarios like embedded vim splits inside tmux panes.

This plugin adds another layer to christoomey's plugin vim-tmux-navigator, which does most of the heavy lifting.

How does it work

The plugin sends the correct keypresses based on the focused appplication. In order to differentitate between vim and tmux clients, the title of your terminal is changed.

If your shell/terminal stack is not configured to show dynamic titles, you can set the experimental flag, which will try to determine the focused application by using pstree.

Installation

AwesomeWM

Clone the repo.

git clone https://github.com/intrntbrn/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator

It's not recommended to change the path since it's hardcoded in other configuration files.

Add your preferred navigation (focus) keybinds to rc.lua (e.g. Mod4+arrows or Mod4+hjkl)

require("awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator") {
    up = {"Up", "k"},
    down = {"Down", "j"},
    left = {"Left", "h"},
    right = {"Right", "l"},
    mod = "Mod4",
    mod_keysym = "Super_L",
    --experimental = true
}

Please verify that mod and mod_keysym matches your actual awesomewm modifier key by using the terminal applications xev and xmodmap. For instance you might be using the right windows/super key and have to specify "Super_R" as your mod_keysym, or "Mod1" and "Alt_L" if you prefer to use the alt key.

Don't forget to remove your previously used navigation keybinds (or other conflicting keybinds) in rc.lua.

It is possible to use a custom focus function by defining focus. Default is awful.client.focus.global_bydirection.

Vim

Plug 'intrntbrn/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator'

Remove similar plugins (like christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator).

Options:

let g:tmux_navigator_insert_mode = 1 to enable navigator keybinds in insert mode

Tmux

Add the following to your tmux.conf at the very bottom.

# Set title suffix to "- TMUX"
set-option -g set-titles on
set-option -g set-titles-string '#S: #W - TMUX'

# Smart pane switching with awareness of vim splits and system windows
is_vim="ps -o state= -o comm= -t '#{pane_tty}' \
	| grep -iqE '^[^TXZ ]+ +(\\S+\\/)?g?(view|n?vim?x?)(diff)?$'"
bind -n C-Left if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-h" "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh left'"
bind -n C-Down if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-j" "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh down'"
bind -n C-Up if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-k" "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh up'"
bind -n C-Right if-shell "$is_vim" "send-keys C-l" "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh right'"
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi 'C-Left' "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh left'"
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi 'C-Down' "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh down'"
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi 'C-Up' "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh up'"
bind-key -T copy-mode-vi 'C-Right' "run-shell 'sh ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/tmux_focus.sh right'"

Troubleshooting

1. Make sure there are no conflicting keybindings.

2. Check https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator#troubleshooting.

3. Try to enable dynamic titles in your shell. Minimal configurations are provided for zsh and bash:

echo "source ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/dynamictitles.zsh" >> ~/.zshrc

or

echo "source ~/.config/awesome/awesomewm-vim-tmux-navigator/dynamictitles.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

After a correct installation the title of a tmux session should end with "- TMUX" and "- VIM" or "- NVIM" for vim or nvim sessions respectively. Check the title of the terminal client in your wm tasklist or by using the terminal application xprop (title is property WM_NAME).

In case your title does not change, your terminal and/or shell may not support dynamic titles. Try other.

4. Set experimental = true. The experimental mode does not require dynamic titles, but might be a bit slower due to having pstree to spawn.