Ask HN: Struggling with managing i3/tmux/vim. Need to simplify.

1 points by madewithdrama 97 days ago | 5 comments

I use i3 for managing my tiles/windows ( and I like the features like the scratch pad). I like tmux even though it has pretty awful keybinds (relative to i3) for pane/window navigation, but it's super convenient for managing and saving sessions and restoring them when i reboot my laptop.

For many years, I've used marimo/jupyter/obsidian for research and writing notes and vim for quick edits, but I've switched to primarily vim as my go to editor and it's been nice to ditch the browser and focus on 1 tool, plus plugins like telescope are very convenient.

But I'm getting overwhelmed with the variety of options I have for navigating/switching/resizing my windows/panes/buffers/sessions/etc.There's a lot of keybinds to remember and execute on the fly, and honestly I'm running out of meta keys. I keep thinking that there must be a simpler way.

And sometimes simple issues seem hard to fix without adding more keybinds. A specific example I am facing right now is very similar to this post, and there doesn't seem to be a super convenient solution that fits within my workflow: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/145857/how-do-you-hide-a-tmux-pane

Anyone had similar issues? It can't be that uncommon of a situation. Do you have a work environment or tool suggestion that I can look into? I'm not going back to using a mouse and browser tabs.

Thanks!

sprsquish 97 days ago |

When I was running i3 I basically used it as a glorified workspace switcher. I ran a terminal with tmux full screen on one workspace and a browser full screen on the other. i3 let me swap between them, run a status bar with a clock and other little helpers and a launcher for when I needed some other app. The only bindings I needed to know where how to switch workspaces and how to navigate tmux and neovim.

madewithdrama 97 days ago | |

That's pretty much where I'm at.

But I keep running into situations such as this: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/145857/how-do-you-h...

where I can think of numerous hacky solutions for the job (i could use i3, or split tmux and add keybinds, or split panes in vim) and it feels unsustainable.

ofalkaed 97 days ago |

https://notionwm.net/

madewithdrama 97 days ago | |

what would switching from i3 to notion accomplish? does it also replace tmux?

ofalkaed 97 days ago | | |

Given what you say about how you use i3/tmux, I think it can replace both for you if you can adapt to it's sense of static tabbed and tiling window management.