[configuration] tmux status bar configuration

How is the status bar is customized? I noticed in this youtube video (at 3:05 - image below), the status bar looks very different than the default one that I see after installing tmux on my Mac OS X.

In particular, I like how the middle of the status bar shows the current program and the left side shows the name of only the current session. In comparison, my setup shows the name of all of the sessions and doesn't show the current application (for the currently focused pane).

If anyone could show me a sample configuration that could do this or show me where I can find the customization rules, that would be great! Thanks!

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Update: In case anyone is curious, I was able to customize a status bar that is similar to the one seen in the video (minor tweaks) and you can find my config file on my github if you'd like to see an example.

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The answer is


Do C-b, :show which will show you all your current settings. /green, nnn will find you which properties have been set to green, the default. Do C-b, :set window-status-bg cyan and the bottom bar should change colour.

List available colours for tmux

You can tell more easily by the titles and the colours as they're actually set in your live session :show, than by searching through the man page, in my opinion. It is a very well-written man page when you have the time though.

If you don't like one of your changes and you can't remember how it was originally set, you can open do a new tmux session. To change settings for good edit ~/.tmux.conf with a line like set window-status-bg -g cyan. Here's mine: https://gist.github.com/9083598


I have been playing about with tmux today, trying to customised a little here and there, managed to get battery info displaying on the status right with a ruby script.

Copy the ruby script from http://natedickson.com/blog/2013/04/30/battery-status-in-tmux/ and save it as:

 battinfo.rb in ~/bin

To make it executable make sure to run:

chmod +x ~/bin/battinfo.rb

edit your ~/.tmux.config and include this line

set -g status-right "#[fg=colour155]#(pmset -g batt | ~/bin/battinfo.rb) | #[fg=colour45]%d %b %R"

I used tmux-powerline to fully pimp my tmux status bar. I was googling for a way to change to background of the status bar when your typing a tmux command. When I stumbled on this post I thought I should mention it for completeness.

Update: This project is in a maintenance mode and no future functionality is likely to be added. tmux-powerline, with all other powerline projects, is replaced by the new unifying powerline. However this project is still functional and can serve as a lightweight alternative for non-python users.