Emacs or vi mode

As we discovered in Chapter 1, Jump Right In, tmux tries to help developers by providing two sets of key bindings, one each for the two most widespread text editors. If you swing one way or the other, this is likely to be one of the first things you'll want to change to make tmux feel right for you.

The default for tmux is to use the Emacs mode keys, so if you are an Emacs user, you may be all set. tmux also tries to help out and might, based on environment variables, switch to one group or the other by default. To check which mode tmux is currently in, run the following command:

$ tmux show-options -g | grep key

You should get an output that looks something similar to the following command:

$ status-keys emacs

If you are in the mode you'd like to be in, you can do nothing. If you are in the wrong mode though, you would most likely want to add the following couple of lines to your .tmux.conf file, obviously choosing the appropriate editor:

set-option -g status-keys...