Tmux copycat

This plugin enables:

regex searches
search result highlighting
predefined searches

Predefined searches are plugin killer feature. It speeds the workflow and reduces mouse usage with Tmux.

It works even better when paired with tmux yank.

Screencast

Search

prefix + / - regex search (strings work too)

Example search entries:

foo - searches for string foo
[0-9]\\+ - regex search for numbers (notice + is escaped with 2 x \)

Grep is used for searching.
Escape regex characters with 2 backslashes.
Searches are case insensitive.

Predefined searches

prefix + ctrl-f - simple file search
prefix + ctrl-g - jumping over git status files (best used after git status command)
prefix + ctrl-u - url search
prefix + ctrl-d - number search (mnemonic d, as digit)
prefix + ctrl-r - "rails server" request search

These start "copycat mode" and jump to first match.

"Copycat mode" bindings

These are enabled when you search with copycat:

n - jumps to the next match
N - jumps to the previous match

To copy a highlighted match:

Enter - if you're using Tmux vi mode
ctrl-w or alt-w - if you're using Tmux emacs mode

Copying a highlighted match will take you "out" of copycat mode. Paste with prefix + ] (this is Tmux default paste).

Copying highlighted matches can be enhanced with tmux yank.

Customization

Most of the behavior of tmux-copycat can be customized via tmux options.
To set a value, just put set -g @option "value" in your .tmux.conf before loading the tmux-copycat plugin.

Available options:

@copycat_search defines the key-binding used (after prefix) to start an interactive search. Defaults to /.
@copycat_git_special defines the key-binding to launch a git status search. Defaults to C-g.
@copycat_next defines the key (without prefix) used to jump to next search result. Defaults to n.
@copycat_prev defines the key (without prefix) used to jump to previous search result. Defaults to N.

Defining new stored searches

To speed up the workflow, in .tmux.conf you can define new bindings for searches you use often. Examples:

# 'prefix + ctrl-t' searches for "search me" string
set -g @copycat_search_C-t "search me"

# 'prefix + alt-t' searches for defined regex
set -g @copycat_search_M-t "regex search[[:alnum:]]\*"

Limitations

This plugin tries hard to consistently enable "marketed" features. It uses some hacks to go beyond the APIs Tmux provides. Because of this, it might have some "rough edges" and there's nothing that can be done.

Examples: non-perfect file and url matching and selection. That said, usage should be fine in +90% cases.
feel free to report search cases you think should work, but are not (provide examples pls!). I'm open to the idea of adding more saved searches.
Tmux vi copy mode works faster than emacs. If you don't have a preference yet and to speed up tmux_copycat, I recommend putting this in .tmux.conf to set Tmux copy mode to vi:
```
set -g mode-keys vi
```

Installation with Tmux Plugin Manager (recommended)

Add plugin to the list of TPM plugins in .tmux.conf:

set -g @tpm_plugins "          \
  tmux-plugins/tpm             \
  tmux-plugins/tmux-copycat    \
"

Hit prefix + I to fetch the plugin and source it. You should now be able to use the plugin.

Manual Installation

Clone the repo:

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

Add this line to the bottom of .tmux.conf:

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

Reload TMUX environment:

# type this in terminal
$ tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf

You should now be able to use the plugin.

Other goodies

tmux-copycat works great with:

tmux-yank - enables copying highlighted text to system clipboard
tmux-open - a plugin for quickly opening a highlighted file or a url

Test suite

This plugin has an integration test suite. It depends on vagrant. Run it with:

# within project top directory
$ ./run-tests

By default tests run in 2 vagrant VMs: ubuntu and centos.

Contributions and new features

Bug fixes and contributions are welcome.

Feel free to suggest new features, via github issues.

If you have a bigger idea you'd like to work on, please get in touch, also via github issues.

License

MIT

grota / tmux-copycat