Tmux prefix highlight

NOTE: This project is no longer in active development. Bugs and features requests won't get implemented by the project maintainers. We still welcome discussions and community pull requests, though.

Plugin that highlights when you press tmux prefix key. Inspired by this thread on stackoverflow.

Many thanks to @obxhdx for showing me this trick.

Prefix off:

Prefix on:

Usage

Just add #{prefix_highlight} to your left/right status bar.

set -g status-right '#{prefix_highlight} | %a %Y-%m-%d %H:%M'

The plugin can also be configured to show when copy mode is active; see the Configurations section for details.

Installation with Tmux Plugin Manager (recommended)

Add plugin to the list of TPM plugins:

set -g @plugin 'tmux-plugins/tmux-prefix-highlight'

Press prefix + I to install it.

Manual Installation

Clone the repo:

$ git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tmux-prefix-highlight.git ~/clone/path

Add this line to your .tmux.conf:

run-shell ~/clone/path/prefix_highlight.tmux

Reload TMUX environment with:

$ tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf

Configurations

The colors used for the prefix highlight can be configured:

set -g @prefix_highlight_fg 'white' # default is 'colour231'
set -g @prefix_highlight_bg 'blue'  # default is 'colour04'

The plugin can also be configured to show when copy or synchronized panes mode is active. If enabled, the #{prefix_highlight} token will be replaced with the string Copy when copy mode is enabled and Sync for synchronized panes. The style for copy and sync mode can be configured as a comma-separated list of colors and attributes:

set -g @prefix_highlight_show_copy_mode 'on'
set -g @prefix_highlight_copy_mode_attr 'fg=black,bg=yellow,bold' # default is 'fg=default,bg=yellow'
set -g @prefix_highlight_show_sync_mode 'on'
set -g @prefix_highlight_sync_mode_attr 'fg=black,bg=green' # default is 'fg=default,bg=yellow'

The prefix, copy and sync prompts can also be configured:

set -g @prefix_highlight_prefix_prompt 'Wait'
set -g @prefix_highlight_copy_prompt 'Copy'
set -g @prefix_highlight_sync_prompt 'Sync'

Additionally, the plugin can be configured to attach optional affixes to the value contained in #{prefix_highlight}. (e.g. < ^B >)

set -g @prefix_highlight_output_prefix '< '
set -g @prefix_highlight_output_suffix ' >'

The empty (shown when prefix is off) prompt and attribute can be configured, It is useful for aligning segments.

set -g @prefix_highlight_empty_prompt '        '          # default is '' (empty char)
set -g @prefix_highlight_empty_attr 'fg=default,bg=green' # default is 'fg=default,bg=default'

Defaultly, empty prompt can't be attached optional affixes. If you want attach affixes on empty prompt, config @prefix_highlight_empty_has_affixes to on.

set -g @prefix_highlight_empty_has_affixes 'on' # default is 'off'
set -g @prefix_highlight_empty_prompt 'Tmux'
set -g @prefix_highlight_output_prefix '< '
set -g @prefix_highlight_output_suffix ' >'

Change option scope (default g - global)

Follows same rules as set-option

Special case: To set scope to session use '-', because by default session scope used when no param is provided.

set -g @prefix_highlight_option_scope '-'

License

MIT