Mastodawn

Seeking terminal emulator with MRU tab switching shortcut

https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/20256061

Seeking terminal emulator with MRU tab switching shortcut - SDF Chatter

I’m new to Linux; I fled from Windows in the wake of 10-11 ever-accelerating stream of bullshit. Anyway, I have major muscle memory for MRU window and tab switching. I use it all the time to switch windows, switch browser tabs, and switch IDE tabs. In Windows, I could also switch Terminal tabs in MRU order, and I miss this in Linux. My distro (Mint) comes with gnome-terminal, which as far as I can tell doesn’t expose MRU switching as an option. Is there an alternative terminal that does support this? Alternatively, if you use MRU switching in other contexts but not in your terminal, what do you use instead?

cizra Jul 30, 2024

I think tmux should be able to do that.

stackoverflow.com/…/how-to-switch-to-the-previous…

How to switch to the previous pane by any shortcut in tmux?

For example, I have three panes in a window with tmux. Now my cursor is in the second pane. If I use: C-b o I can move to the third pane. But I want to move to the first pane on the second pane....

Stack Overflow

AdamBomb Jul 30, 2024

Thanks, I’ve heard of tmux but have never used it before. I took a quick look at the Getting Started guide, and it sounds like I could get behavior like what I want by e.g. creating two windows each with one full-window pane and toggle back and forth between windows? I will definitely look into this further.

cizra Jul 30, 2024

Yes, something like that.

You’ll get other fun features for free, like

the ability to reattach the session over SSH, after starting it locally
immunity to Xorg / Wayland compositor / terminal emulator crashing
ability to comfily use non-tabbed terminal emulators like Alacritty. At least I think it’s not tabbed…

AdamBomb Jul 31, 2024

I don’t see anything in the docs about an action that activates the most recently used window that I could bind to C-Tab. Am I just not searching for the right term?

AdamBomb Jul 31, 2024

OK, this sounds close to what I want, but I left one part unsaid: my muscle memory is such that if I want to visit the 2nd most recent tab, I can hold Ctrl, press Tab twice, then release Ctrl. It doesn’t sound like I can accomplish this with tmux key bindings, or can I?

cizra Jul 31, 2024

I dunno, but it sounds like you’d end up back in the original, rather :|

Zavorra Jul 30, 2024

Not sure about the specific requirement but here you can find a list of “modern” terminal emulators to look at

Z

awesome-terminals/README.md at master · cdleon/awesome-terminals

Terminal Emulators. Contribute to cdleon/awesome-terminals development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

AdamBomb Jul 30, 2024

Thanks for the link! There are lots of lists of terminals out there, but it’s really hard for me to judge the quality of the lists.

tmpod Jul 30, 2024

Kitty has been my daily driver for quite some time now, I really like it for its rich feature set and extensive configuration.

You can use its goto_tab action with 0 and negative values to get MRU behaviour. See more here: sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/actions/#action-goto_tab

Mappable actions

The actions described below can be mapped to any key press or mouse action using the map and mouse_map directives in kitty.conf. For configuration examples, see the default shortcut links for each ...

kitty

AdamBomb Jul 31, 2024

OK, this sounds close to what I want, but I left one part unsaid: my muscle memory is such that if I want to visit the 2nd most recent tab, I can hold Ctrl, press Tab twice, then release Ctrl. It doesn’t sound like I can accomplish this with Kitty key bindings, or can I?

tmpod Jul 31, 2024

Just tested* and it doesn’t seem to work, no. I don’t know if it’s doable though, it may be.

Even though I’m a heavy user of that behaviour in Firefox (which now has to be explicitly turned on :/), I’ve gotten used to just use the left and right arrows (+kitty mod bind) to move around tabs.

AdamBomb Jul 31, 2024

Thanks, I’m open to learning alternative workflows, so thanks for adding that info.

tmpod Jul 31, 2024

Glad to hear! Good luck :)

ouch Jul 31, 2024

I guess MRU means Most Recently Used.

Please include explanations for abbreviations you mention.

AdamBomb Jul 31, 2024

MRU means Most Recently Used. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

JoshCodes Jul 31, 2024

I’ve read your update but try Terminator. You use alt + arrow keys to navigate multiple on screen terminals, create new ones with ctrl+e/o and its my favourite. I highly recommend giving it a try!

AdamBomb Aug 1, 2024

Thanks, I did try Terminator, but it didn’t seem to have the kind of C-Tab MRU tab switching I was after. BTW, it looks like the two I did find also support multi-pane terminals with arrow key navigation. Thanks for taking the time to reply!

JoshCodes Aug 1, 2024

All goof, enjoy your alternatives!