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

Option	Explanation
powerline	Use the new Powerline symbols. (January 2013 or later)
vim-powerline	Use the old Powerline symbols from the now deprecated Lokaltog/vim-powerline project.
unicode	Use Unicode symbols. (default)
ascii	Use ASCII symbols.
none	No symbols.

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"