TITLE: tmux popup windows for quickly launching scripts
DATE: 2021-07-10
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
====================================================================


I was inspired by this video, which uses the pop-up window feature 
in tmux v3.2+ to quickly launch scripts that don't deserve their 
own pane. I wrote a similar script to handle the pop-ups, which I 
keep in my $PATH:

  [this video]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41JxYe70Xwo
  [tmux]: https://github.com/tmux/tmux

    #!/usr/bin/env sh

    # List scripts 
    read -d '' APPS << EOF
    passwords   ~/bin/tmux_popup/./fpass_popup
    mount drives    ~/bin/netmount
    search papers   ~/bin/papers
    stopwatch   ~/bin/stopwatch
    internet speed test ~/bin/speed
    emojis  ~/bin/tmux_popup/./emoji_popup
    calculator  ~/bin/tmux_popup/./calc_popup
    EOF

    SELECTED="$(echo "$APPS" | fzf -d " " --with-nth 1 | sed 
"s/.*\t//g")"

    eval "${SELECTED}"

The scripts are listed by their name, which appears in the fzf 
pop-up, and their path, separated by a tab.

  ![Example of tmux popup 
window](https://johngodlee.xyz/img_full/tmux_popup/popup.png)

The scripts currently available in the popup:

-   passwords - Search pass password store using fzf and copy the 
selected password to the clipboard
-   mount drives - Search mountable drives using fzf and mount the 
selected drive
-   search papers - Search through academic article pdfs using fzf 
and pdftotext, then open the selected pdf
-   stopwatch - Run a stopwatch
-   internet speed test - Run an upload/download speed test
-   emojis - Search through emojis using fzf and copy the selected 
emoji to the clipboard
-   calculator - open an R console with --no-save and --quiet flags 
for performing simple calculations

The script is launched by hitting <prefix>-Tab in tmux, using this 
line in my .tmux.conf:

    bind-key Tab capture-pane \; save-buffer /tmp/tmux-buffer \; 
delete-buffer \; display-popup -w 50% -h 50% -E "/path/to/fzf-speed"