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tmux
All
12
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Easily split panes
There is a keyboard shortcut that makes it easy to split a window and create more panes.
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Con
Poorly designed key binding
Counter-intuitive keyboard shortcuts make tmux very hard to use and learn.
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Pro
Windows linked to sessions
tmux calls the individual shell instances windows. They are displayed like tabs in the status line. These windows can be shared between different sessions, so that any given shell instance can be in any number of tmux sessions used for different purposes or by different users. This allows configurations like the following example: User A: wAB, wA1, wA2; User B: wB1, wAB, wB2
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Con
Bad scrolling support
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Pro
Preserve the state
As long as you don't close your session, you may even lose your SSH connection, it'll keep your state just as it was. So you can resume where you left off (via tmux attach).
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Con
No builtin telnet or serial support
It's considered bloat by the maintainers and for this reason there's no builtin support for them.
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Pro
Maximize screen space
As a tiling window manager, it'll make use of all the space. As you have multiple workspaces and you can resize, etc. you can adjust to see what matters most.
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Pro
Frequently updated
Tmux is in a state of constant development. Updates are frequent and bug reports usually get an answer within days.
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Pro
Customizable
Open ~/.tmux.conf to get started. You can customize keybindings, the bottom status bar, color schemes, the clock screen, your time zone, and more.
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Pro
Mouse support
Mouse support can optionally be enabled, allowing e.g. scrolling with the mouse wheel, or switching panes with mouse clicks.
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Pro
Only need to learn a few keyboard shortcuts and commands to make much headway
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Specs
License:
ISC license
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abduco + dvtm
All
5
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Simpler and cleaner than tmux or screen
Contains less code. Does not have to be backwards compatible. Two separate tools, each doing its job: session management may be used separately from tiling window/pane management.
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Con
Not as widely/consistently available as similar tools
This isn't too unexpected since it's not as popular, but it can be annoying; even Ubuntu's repo version is 3 years out of date and lacks the tag features.
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Pro
Intuitive/carefully chosen keyboard shortcuts
There are the 13 shortcuts that let you accomplish the vast majority of what you'll ever need (Mod is ctrl-g by default): Window manipulation: Mod-c to create a window, Mod-l/h to adjust window size, Mod-j/k to change window, Mod-n to select nth window in view, Mod-enter to swap with master window, Mod-space to change layout. Tagging: Mod-t n to tag a window with the nth tag (1..5), Mod-T n to add/remove tag n to/from the window, Mod-v to view all windows with tag n, Mod-V to add/remove all windows with tag n to/from view, Mod-0 to view all windows.
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Con
Not so actively developed
Even though other options don't see updates often as well. Despite this, it's fairly feature-complete and very stable.
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Pro
Fairly feature-complete and stable
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11
1
Byobu
All
9
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Easy to get started
All of byobu's functionality is conveniently mapped to F1 to F12. It has a help menu to see keybindings and offers window tabs in an easy to interpret format. All this makes it easy to get started (can get in the way of power users, though).
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Con
Can't be used as login shell
The byobu abstraction layers don't pass the parameters on to tmux or screen that indicate that they should run as a login shell. This means that you can't run 'ssh -t hostname byobu'. You need to use 'ssh -t hostname bash -l -c byobu'. A second implication is that the inner shell won't know to read the .profile file instead of the .$SHELLrc file. I know of no workaround for this.
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Pro
Abstracts tmux and screen with a single user interface.
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Con
Comparatively heavy
byobu adds a lot of functionality to the default tmux display. Most of that can't be implemented using the internal variables tmux provides, but requires executing external scripts. This must be done on every update of the status bar, which happens once a second. That means that the system is performing a lot of forks and interpreting a lot of scripts for this "thin shell wrapper".
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Pro
apt-get or yum install byobu
If neither tmux nor screen are already installed, installs tmux. Both screen and tmux can be installled at same time. Switch between either easily.
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Con
Adds only a relatively superficial abstraction on tmux or screen
Byobu still uses GNU Screen or tmux as the backend, so from a usability perspective it doesn't add much in terms of new functionalities, instead it only adds a layer of abstraction on top of them.
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Pro
Adds OS dashboard alerts
byobu has support for OS alerts when an event happens.
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Pro
Basic package in Ubuntu Server
Byobu package is part of the basic packages in Ubuntu Server distributions.
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Specs
License:
GPLv3
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Experiences
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27
4
Screen
All
6
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Preserve your session
Screen allows multiple terminals (screens) within a single screen number, so when you reconnect they will all be there.
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Con
Scrolling becomes tricky
You can no longer scroll with your mouse wheel, unless you do Ctra-a + Escape first
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Pro
It is installed by default on a lot of systems including macOS
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Con
Doesn't work too well with ssh X connections
If you have an X connection over ssh within screen, it likely won't reconnect when you reconnect your screen.
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Pro
Supports shared sessions
More than one user can be connected to a single screen session.
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Pro
Also works as serial port terminal
This is actually very valuable for embedded or networking work.
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20
4
Vim
All
46
Experiences
Pros
30
Cons
15
Specs
Top
Pro
Lightweight and fast
When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs.
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Con
High effort to customize
A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs.
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Pro
Free and open-source software
Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.
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Con
Difficult learning curve
You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers.
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Pro
Works in terminal over SSH
Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH.
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Con
Difficult to copy, paste, and delete
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Pro
Extremely portable
Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection.
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Con
Poor support for external tooling
Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling.
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Pro
Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support
There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency. Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while.
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Con
Poor feature discoverability
Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well.
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Pro
Great productivity
Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making my ost of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches.
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Con
No smooth scrolling
Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files.
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Pro
Macros increase productivity
Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand.
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Con
Doesn't play nice with the system cut/paste mechanisms
This can be worked around somewhat if you disable mouse for insert mode. You can then right-click your terminal and use paste like you would anywhere else in a terminal. But it still doesn't feel right when the rest of your system uses Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, and you have a system clipboard manager, and so forth.
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Pro
Excellent performance
As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag.
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Con
Outdated UI
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Pro
Tons of plugins/add-ons
This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view.
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Con
Requires Brain Mode Switching
When editing in vim, you have you use the vim keys; when editing in every other window on your PC, or in Word or Excel or other application, you need to use the standard system key combinations. Learning the vim combinations can actually make you SLOWER at everything else.
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Pro
Everything is mnemonic
No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example.
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Con
Slow when opening files with very long lines
A lot of very long lines can make Vim take up to a minute to open files, where a few other editors take only seconds to load the same file.
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Top
Pro
Vimtutor
Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.
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Con
Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic
Text editing in vim is awesome, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing.
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Pro
Amazing extensibility
Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more.
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Con
Foreign keyboards have a hard time on Vim out of the box
A lot of frequently-used keybinds are way harder to access on foreign keyboards because they use different layouts. For example, Germans use the QWERTZ layout, while French use the AZERTY.
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Pro
Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)
If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too.
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Con
Unintuitive mode switching
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Pro
Has been supported for a long time
And will be supported for many years to come.
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Con
Extensibility isn't that great
While it has gotten better and some projects are slowly starting to build proper extension support, it still can't and by design never will achieve the extensibility of another editor like emacs.
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Pro
Once learned, it's very hard to forget
Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes.
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Con
Works poorly out of the box with right-to-left
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Pro
Can never outgrow it
The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh.
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Pro
Flexible feature-set
Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way.
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Pro
Has multiple distinct editing modes
Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each. Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors. Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc. Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell. Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code. Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim.
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Pro
By default in Linux
All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient!
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Pro
Vim encourages discipline
If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient.
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Pro
Useful undo features
Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again.
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Pro
Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland
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Pro
Built-in package management
Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type.
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Pro
If you can use Vim you can also use vi
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Pro
Works on Android
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Pro
Productivity enhancing modal paradigm
As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm.
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Pro
Asynchronous I/O support
Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze.
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Pro
Can set up keymapping
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Pro
Multiple clipboards
It is called "registers".
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Pro
Status Booster
Using vim not just increase your productivity, but helps you flex.
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin
License:
Vim License
Price:
0
Extension language:
Vim
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