This is my single most repeated action on a normal terminal window:
* Clear and discard all scrollback history: Ctrl+Shift+K
* Start a program run
* Select all output: Ctrl+Shift+A
* Copy it: Ctrl+Shift+C
* Paste it somewhere else
A total of 3 key combinations, that are now second nature.
When I installed Tmux and tried to replicate this, I only found a sea of gotchas. No key binding by default for clearing the scroll; similarly, no way to select all text with one single keypress; no way to copy the selected text so I can paste it in other applications.
Given enough time, of course, all of these can be solved one by one, assuming enough motivation and free time (use custom configs, configure xclip, etc) but the default onboarding experience was a bit poor, to be honest.
This is not a fault specifically of Tmux, but more of the typical lack of cohesion between different components that are considered independent tools albeit from the user pow they are arguably part of the same thing.
I might have to revisit Tmux by means of Byobu [0] and see if this time it clicks.
Why are you copy pasting? I'm sure you know about stdout redirection, so I'm intrigued why this process is required. I'm guessing you're pasting logs into some gui system?
I like starting from a clean slate and having only the output from last run of my program, so that's why the clearing screen step.
Then, the copy-paste is not done always, but it's done a lot when analyzing logs or debugging some issue. I prefer to read that output with the much more advanced filtering and searching tools that I have installed in my VSCode editor.
After years of wrestling with configurations and dot files, I have finally realised that if you use a new tool, you should learn to use it properly and as intended by the author instead of trying to make it behave similar to some other tool you know well. At least for the first couple of years
* Clear and discard all scrollback history: Ctrl+Shift+K
* Start a program run
* Select all output: Ctrl+Shift+A
* Copy it: Ctrl+Shift+C
* Paste it somewhere else
A total of 3 key combinations, that are now second nature.
When I installed Tmux and tried to replicate this, I only found a sea of gotchas. No key binding by default for clearing the scroll; similarly, no way to select all text with one single keypress; no way to copy the selected text so I can paste it in other applications.
Given enough time, of course, all of these can be solved one by one, assuming enough motivation and free time (use custom configs, configure xclip, etc) but the default onboarding experience was a bit poor, to be honest.
This is not a fault specifically of Tmux, but more of the typical lack of cohesion between different components that are considered independent tools albeit from the user pow they are arguably part of the same thing.
I might have to revisit Tmux by means of Byobu [0] and see if this time it clicks.
[0]: https://www.byobu.org/