Tmux Powerline theme

(March 2016) Rewritten with support for Tmux Plugin Manager (optional), and avoids an ugly race condition workaround used in the previous version. Upgrade!

Features

• Colors chosen to degrade gracefully (256 → 16 → 2), and shows flag automatically if initialised with fewer than 16 colors supported.
• Supports new and old Powerline glyphs, but defaults to no special symbols.

Issues

• Doesn't check Tmux version before executing commands, resulting in error messages at startup. (#2)

Alternatives

• More powerful, but with dependencies: https://github.com/powerline/powerline

Install

Tmux Plugin Manager (TPM)

1. Use Tmux Plugin Manager.
2. Add to your .tmux.conf: set -g @plugin 'jooize/tmux-powerline-theme'
3. Hit ^B I inside Tmux to make TPM install it.

Load from shell

1. Save powerline-theme.tmux somewhere.
2. Run in a shell: sh powerline-theme.tmux

Manual install in tmux.conf

1. Save powerline-theme.tmux to $HOME/.tmux/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux
2. Put in your tmux.conf: run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"

Configure

All paths assume installation by Tmux Plugin Manager.

$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux

Enable Powerline symbols

If you don't want Powerline symbols, simply load the theme.

#
# Powerline theme
#

# Enable Powerline symbols (unless already specified otherwise in environment)
if-shell ': ${TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS?}' '' 'set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "powerline"'

# Toggle between Powerline and Unicode symbols with ^B P
bind-key P if-shell 'test $(echo "${TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS}") = "unicode"' 'set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "powerline" ; run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"' 'set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "unicode" ; run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"'

Symbol alternatives

Both unicode and ascii effectively mean no symbols at this time.

Compact mode

Environment variables. Run in shell either before starting Tmux or execute powerline-theme.tmux afterward to apply.

Compact current window

export TMUX_POWERLINE_COMPACT_CURRENT=on

Compact other windows

export TMUX_POWERLINE_COMPACT_OTHER=on

Flag

export TMUX_POWERLINE_FLAG=on

Symbols

export TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS="powerline"

Suggestions

Toggle key for symbols

Switch between two sets of symbols with ^B P by putting this in your .tmux.conf.

# Toggle between Unicode and new Powerline symbols
bind-key P if-shell 'test $(echo "${TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS}") = "unicode"' 'set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "powerline" ; run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"' 'set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "unicode" ; run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"'

Enable and disable keys for symbols

Add these lines to your .tmux.conf and replace the brackets with your preferred keys.

bind-key <enable_key> set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "powerline" \; run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"
bind-key <disable_key> set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "unicode" \; run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"

Change symbols manually while Tmux is running

tmux set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "powerline"
tmux run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"

Or replace tmux with pressing ^B : to use Tmux's command line.

Attach Tmux on device without Powerline font

Run the following in a shell, then optionally specify its location as command to run on connect in your SSH client.

mkdir -p "$HOME/Executables"

cat << 'EOF' > "$HOME/Executables/TmuxAttachMobile.sh"
#!/bin/sh

# Set desired symbols.
tmux set-environment -g TMUX_POWERLINE_SYMBOLS "unicode"

# Run Powerline theme again to apply.
tmux run-shell "$HOME/.tmux/plugins/tmux-powerline-theme/powerline-theme.tmux"

# Attach Tmux.
tmux attach
EOF

chmod +x "$HOME/Executables/TmuxAttachMobile.sh"