tmux_popup.md

title
Tmux Popup Notes

Ahhh, this is a good one — this is exactly the kind of terminal ergonomics question that separates casual tmux users from people who live in their terminal.

You’re basically asking:

“How do I open a small ‘box’ over my current running pane and run a command inside it?”

In tmux terminology, you’re looking for popups.

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🧊 tmux Popup (The “box over running section”)

Since tmux 3.2, you can open a floating popup window over your current pane.

Open a popup with a shell

Inside tmux:

Ctrl-b :

Then type:

display-popup

This opens a floating shell.

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Open a popup running a specific command

Example:

Ctrl-b :
display-popup -E htop

-E → closes popup when command exits.

Or:

display-popup -E bash

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🎯 Bind it to a key (recommended)

You don’t want to type that every time.

Add to ~/.tmux.conf:

bind-key p display-popup -E

Reload:

Ctrl-b :
source-file ~/.tmux.conf

Now:

Ctrl-b p

→ Opens a popup shell.

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🧠 Advanced Usage (You’ll Like This)

Custom size

display-popup -w 80% -h 60% -E lazygit

Width 80%, height 60%.

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Centered fixed size box

display-popup -w 100 -h 30 -E bash

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Use it for git quickly

bind-key g display-popup -w 80% -h 80% -E lazygit

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⚡ What This Is Perfect For

Given you:

• use Arch
• live in tmux
• like tight CLI workflows

Popups are ideal for:

• lazygit
• htop
• nmtui
• quick python REPL
• temporary debugging
• quick note writing
• GitHub CLI inspection
• interactive fzf search

It’s like having a modal tool without destroying your layout.

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🪟 Alternative: Split Instead of Popup

If you meant something like a smaller box inside the layout:

Horizontal split:

Ctrl-b "

Vertical split:

Ctrl-b %

But that changes layout permanently.

Popup does not.

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🔥 Even More Advanced (Overlay-like behavior)

You can combine:

display-popup -E "bash -c 'your-command; read'"

So it stays open after command finishes.

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If you want, I can also show you:

• How to make popups semi-transparent (KDE + Konsole specific)
• How to replicate Vim-style floating terminal behavior
• How to emulate GNU screen behavior (since you’ve compared them before)
• How to build a full “overlay toolkit” inside tmux

What exactly is your intended workflow for the box? Debugging? Monitoring? Quick commands?

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Yes — and this is where tmux becomes very composable.

Short answer:

1. ✅ You can trigger a popup from inside bash running in a tmux pane.
2. ⚠️ You cannot dynamically resize an already-open popup (it must be recreated).

Let’s go precise.

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1️⃣ Running a popup from inside bash (in a tmux pane)

From inside a tmux pane, just run:

tmux display-popup -E

That opens a popup shell over your current pane.

You can run any command:

tmux display-popup -w 80% -h 60% -E htop

or

tmux display-popup -E "bash -c 'echo hello; read'"

This works because inside a tmux pane:

• $TMUX is set
• tmux client attaches to current session automatically

You don’t need to specify -t.

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🧠 Very Useful Pattern

Make a bash alias:

alias tpop='tmux display-popup -w 80% -h 60% -E'

Then:

tpop lazygit
tpop htop
tpop python

Now you’ve got modal tools anywhere.

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2️⃣ Can you resize a popup after opening?

❌ No — not interactively.

Popups are not panes.

They are temporary overlays rendered by tmux’s display layer.

There is:

• no resize-pane equivalent
• no mouse resize
• no key resize

To change size → you must close and reopen.

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3️⃣ Workaround: Reopen with new size

Example:

tmux display-popup -w 90% -h 80% -E bash

Or absolute size:

tmux display-popup -w 120 -h 40 -E bash

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4️⃣ Advanced: Dynamic Size Based on Current Pane

If you want something adaptive:

tmux display-popup -w "#{pane_width}" -h "#{pane_height}" -E bash

Or smaller than current pane:

tmux display-popup -w "#{?pane_width,#{pane_width},80}" -h 70% -E bash

tmux format strings work here.

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5️⃣ Important Architectural Insight

Why you can’t resize:

• Popup is not part of layout tree
• It doesn’t participate in pane sizing
• It’s rendered independently

If you need:

• resizing
• splitting inside it
• long-running structured workflow

→ Use a normal pane instead.

Popups are ideal for:

• short-lived tools
• quick inspection
• modal utilities

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6️⃣ Hybrid Trick (You’ll Like This)

You can run a new tmux session inside a popup:

tmux display-popup -w 80% -h 80% -E "tmux new-session -A -s scratch"

Now inside popup you have:

• full tmux
• splits
• resizing
• persistent layout

Close popup → session keeps running.

That gives you a floating workspace.

Very powerful.

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7️⃣ Quick Decision Table

Need	Use
Temporary command	Popup
Resize later	Pane
Structured mini workspace	tmux-in-popup
Replace screen-style workflow	Pane splits

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Given you’re on Arch + KDE Konsole + heavy tmux user:

If you tell me what your intended workflow is (debugging? Git? REPL? monitoring?), I can suggest the cleanest ergonomic pattern.