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Is is possible to open a new-window with its working directory set to the one I am currently in. I am using zsh, if it matters.

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A relevant feature landed in the tmux SVN trunk in early February 2012. In tmux builds that include this code, tmux key bindings that invoke new-window will create new a window with the same current working directory as the current pane’s active processes (as long as the default-path session option is empty; it is by default). The same is true for the pane created by the split-window command when it is invoked via a binding.

This uses special platform-specific code, so only certain OSes are supported at this time: Darwin (OS X), FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, and Solaris.

This should be available in the next release of tmux (1.7?).

With tmux 1.4, I usually just use

tmux neww

in a shell that already has the desired current working directory.

If, however, I anticipate needing to create many windows with the same current working directory (or I want to be able to start them with the usual <prefix>c key binding), then I set the default-path session option via

tmux set-option default-path "$PWD"

in a shell that already has the desired current working directory (though you could obviously do it from any directory and just specify the value instead).

If default-path is set to a non-empty value, its value will be used instead of “inheriting” the current working directory from command-line invocations of tmux neww.

The tmux FAQ has an entry titled “How can I open a new window in the same directory as the current window?” that describes another approach; it is a bit convoluted though.

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Is there a way I can map <prefix>c to read the working directory of the underlying shell instance (if any) and set the default-path prior to executing new-window. Or is that too much to ask of tmux :) – Shrikant Sharat Apr 27 '11 at 5:34
On another note, is it even possible to read the underlying shell's working directory? I'd kill to have it displayed in my status bar. – Shrikant Sharat Apr 27 '11 at 5:34
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There is no portable way to extract the cwd of another process (though it is possible on some platforms (e.g. /proc/PID/cwd on Linux)). There is a possible partial solution in an entry of the tmux FAQ (it has the shell record its cwd when it prints a prompt, then binds a key that starts a new shell in the recorded directory). – Chris Johnsen Apr 27 '11 at 7:14
ok, this is a bit out of scope for my knowledge and doesn't feel very reliable. Something tells me I may be better off without all this.. thanks anyway. – Shrikant Sharat Apr 27 '11 at 8:57
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@paradroid: Anything done via a binding will (by default) use the cwd of the tmux server or the value of the default-path session option (if that is set). The tmux FAQ has an entry that describes a way to bind a key that starts a new window with the cwd of the shell running in the current window (“How can I open a new window in the same directory as the current window?”), but the method is quite convoluted. The same could probably be done for split-window and new-session (instead of neww). – Chris Johnsen Aug 23 '11 at 1:53
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