Add Ideas from my Development Setup: Always Tmux

content/posts/ideas-from-my-dev-setup-always-tmux.md

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+title = "Ideas from my Development Setup: Always Tmux"
+date = "2020-09-30"
+author = "Ceda EI"
+tags = ["tmux", "development"]
+keywords = ["tmux", "development"]
+description = "Use tmux at all times in my dev setup"
+showFullContent = false
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+
+Back when I first learnt tmux, I realized it was a really valuable tool. Soon
+afterwards, I found myself in need of wanting to make a split only to find out
+I wasn't in tmux. This would lead to:
+
+- Killing the running process.
+- Starting tmux.
+- Restarting the previous process.
+
+In pursuit of an ideal solution, I added a tiny script in my scripts directory
+which was called by my bashrc.
+
+## Current Workflow
+
+My current workflow simply starts by opening the terminal. Instead of the bash
+prompt, I am greeted by this.
+
+```
+Choose the terminal to attach:
+1 - 12: 3 windows (created Wed Sep 30 14:26:37 2020) (attached)
+2 - tana: 3 windows (created Wed Sep 30 18:17:24 2020) (attached)
+3 - userbot: 1 windows (created Tue Sep 29 18:37:19 2020)
+4 - ytc: 1 windows (created Tue Sep 29 18:37:19 2020)
+
+Create a new session by entering a name for it
+```
+
+At this point, I either
+
+- enter a number (in this case from 1 to 4) to connect to an existing session.
+- enter a name to create a named tmux session.
+- hit enter (or C-D) to create an unnamed session (tmux will name it
+  sequentially).
+- type nil and hit enter to drop to shell without starting tmux
+
+
+## Implementation
+
+In my `.bashrc`, live these lines.
+
+```bash
+if [[ ! -v TMUX && $TERM_PROGRAM != "vscode" ]]; then
+	tmux_chooser && exit
+fi
+```
+
+Although I use vim as my sole editor, I needed to demo something in VSCode and
+for that case I have added an exception so that the script does not run the
+`tmux_chooser` in VSCode's integrated terminal.
+
+Here is the source of `tmux_chooser` called above.
+
+```bash
+#!/usr/bin/bash
+# shellcheck disable=SC2207
+
+# Doesn't let you press Ctrl-C
+function ctrl_c() {
+	echo -e "\renter nil to drop to normal prompt"
+}
+
+trap ctrl_c SIGINT
+
+no_of_terminals=$(tmux list-sessions | wc -l)
+IFS=$'\n'
+output=($(tmux list-sessions))
+output_names=($(tmux list-sessions -F\#S))
+k=1
+echo "Choose the terminal to attach: "
+for i in "${output[@]}"; do
+	echo "$k - $i"
+	((k++))
+done
+echo
+echo "Create a new session by entering a name for it"
+read -r input
+if [[ $input == "" ]]; then
+	tmux new-session
+elif [[ $input == 'nil' ]]; then
+	exit 1
+elif [[ $input =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]] && [[ $input -le $no_of_terminals ]]; then
+	terminal_name="${output_names[input - 1]}"
+	tmux attach -t "$terminal_name"
+else
+	tmux new-session -s "$input"
+fi
+exit 0
+```