Set Up TMUX Dotfiles Configuration Subdirectory

Single File, 100% Portable, No Blocking Dependencies

Make sure you have setup your dotfiles repo.

Change into your dotfiles repo.

cd ~/repos/gitlab.com/rwxyou/dotfiles

Create a tmux directory.

mkdir tmux

Change into the tmux directory.

cd tmux

Create or obtain a TMUX configuration file and place it within directory as tmux.conf.

curl -LO https://rwx.gg/tools/tmux/tmux.conf

Create a setup script that prints Configuring TMUX.

#!/bin/bash
  echo Configuring TMUX

Test that your script works.

./setup

Configuring TMUX

Add a line to create a symbolic link from your $HOME directory to the local tmux.conf file. Don’t forget the full paths in the command. You can also add another line to confirm that the link was created successfully.

#!/bin/bash
  echo Configuring TMUX
  ln -s "$PWD/tmux.conf" "$HOME/.tmux.conf"
  ls -la ~/.tmux.conf

Run it to create your link.

Configuring TMUX
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 sample sample 55 May 27 22:12 /home/rwxrob/.tmux.conf -> /home/rwxrob/repos/gitlab.com/rwxyou/dotfiles/tmux/tmux.conf

That’s it. You should just be able to edit any file now to see the differences.

You might also want to add a README.md describing the process of how to run ./setup and perhaps make your dotfiles directory public so you can share your configuration with others.

If you want to get really fancy, you can actually add some code to detect if tmux has been installed on the system and prompt them to install it first. Here’s the full script:

#!/bin/bash

  if [[ -z "$(which vim)" || -z "$(which vimtutor)" ]]; then
    echo Need to install full vim.
    exit 1
  fi

  echo Configuring Vim
  ln -sf "$PWD/vimrc" "$HOME/.vimrc"
  ls -l "$HOME/.vimrc"

Once you know it runs. Add a line to create a symbolic link to ~/.tmux.conf.