tmux
I'd like to make the last selected window (the one to which :last-window takes you) to stand out visually. By default it's just marked with an inconspicuous - after the name.
Is there a way to set the attributes for last window name in the status line, like set-option window-status-current does for the current window name?
Update: Both Debian Wheezy (stable) and Ubuntu 12.04 have tmux 1.6 that lacks the necessary option. But there's a backport which is 1.9.
The solution was to upgrade.
With the exception of the red brackets around the highlighted window, this is the closest approximation that I can easily configure in tmux 1.5:
# default statusbar colors
set -g status-fg white
set -g status-bg default
# default window title colors
set-window-option -g window-status-fg white
set-window-option -g window-status-bg default
set-window-option -g window-status-attr dim
# active window title colors
set-window-option -g window-status-current-fg white
set-window-option -g window-status-current-bg default
set-window-option -g window-status-current-attr bright
# statusline
set -g status-left '#[fg=green][ #H ]['
set -g status-right '#[fg=green]][ #[fg=blue]%Y-%m-%d #[fg=white]%I:%M #[fg=green]]'
If you want the highlighted window in red, use:
set-window-option -g window-status-current-fg redSome information collected to help in search of a solution:
Doing #(echo #{session_name}) outputs nothing, but #(echo \"#{session_name}\") shows the session name, which looks promising, but...
The reason it works when quoted is that the echo command literally gets the text #{session_name} where, without quotes, the shell considers it a comment, and with the quotes, echos it back verbatim to tmux. Tmux expands the sequence after the command exits
This means we cannot manipulate the expanded string within the shell.
Alternative approaches
Attempting to set a limit, like #7S to limit the session name to 7 characters always applies the limit but doesn't let you test it, so #7... will always show the ellipsis even when not wanted, so that doesn't work
Attempting to access directly via tmux commands doesn't seem to obtain reasonable results. For example, tmux list-sessions -F "#{client_session}" shows nothing, and tmux list-clients -F "#{client_session}" shows the sessions of every client, but if you have more than one client, there isn't an obvious way to tell which one is the one running the command.
I haven't delved into the source yet, but I suspect tmux runs the command prior to even knowing which session it might be for.
Your best bet to get this functionality might be to tweak the source code.
Version 1.8 does the calculation of length in status_redraw_get_left( around line 79 of status.c and the writing of it in status_redraw( at around line 322.
Best Answer
I think there might be a version mis-match or something, but jasonwryan was on the right track for my purposes. I'm using tmux v1.8, and I see the following options in the man page that work:
An example for your
~/.tmux.conf:EDIT: Sure enough, these options were added for tmux v1.8. Thus, this answer is applicable for tmux versions >=1.8 only.
EDIT: Per jasonwryan, his solution is for v1.9+. After reviewing the changelog, the foo-{bg,fg,attr} commands are deprecated as of v1.9 and will be slowly phased out. Best to use jasonwryans solution if on v1.9+.
EDIT: Implemented this in the form of a pull request for the popular status line utility
powerline. https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline/pull/864. This pull request has since been merged.