copy (to X clipboard) shortcut in .tmux.conf

Question

In order to copy text to X clipboard in tmux, what I currently do is:

• go selection mode with prefix[
• start selection with space (using mode-keys vi btw)
• select the text and press enter
• copy tmux buffer to X clipboard using prefixctrl+c

(I have a mapping as bind C-c run "tmux show-buffer | xclip -selection clipboard -i"

I'm trying to eliminate some of these steps by making a mapping for selection mode. I have tried:

bind-key -t vi-copy C-c run "tmux show-buffer | xclip -selection clipboard -i"

which gives me and error:

.. usage: bind-key [-cnr] [-t key-table] key command [arguments]

(I couldn't copy the error)

how can I fix this?

EDIT: I have realized I can select and copy to tmux buffer (first 3 steps) using mouse just like a regular selection (although highlighting doesn't last, it still selects the text) and then use the following bind to copy to x clipboard:

bind-key -n C-c run "tmux show-buffer | xclip -selection clipboard -i"

(I used this method to copy this text and it was easy ;)

note that -n denotes "no prefix" therefore no escaping is needed. if you don't get confused by the vanishing highlight this is analogous to regular (common user interface) copying.

this is the best I have come up with so far..

EDIT2: turned out ctrl+c overlaps with process interrupt thing so I changed to ctrl+alt+c for now. (didn't quite like it)

EDIT3: tmux 1.8 or so added support to add keybindings in copy mode so now my first original intention is possible using something like:

bind-key -tvi-copy y copy-pipe "xclip -selection clipboard -i"
bind-key -tvi-copy enter copy-pipe "xclip -selection clipboard -i"

These two bindings make it possible to copy text to clipboard when I used enter or y to finish copying.

I still keep this line in case I do the copying with mouse and decide to get the tmux buffer content to clipboard later on:

bind-key y run "tmux show-buffer | xclip -selection clipboard -i"

Answer 1

This reply doesn't answer directly your question about creating a shortcut. But here's what I do.

You can temporarily suspend passing your keys/mouse events to tmux by holding shift. So you can press and hold Shift and user regular shortcuts of terminal/X to do the copy. In my case using Terminator, I press shift, highlight with mouse whatever I want, copy with Ctrl+Shift+C

And in case you have split panes, you can zoom the current pane with zoom-toggle-key Prefix + z, and perform the copy operation. (tested on tmux v1.8)

Answer 2

This doesn't directly answer your question, but have a look at tmux-yank, as described in Use system clipboard in vi-copy mode in tmux and Getting tmux to copy a buffer to the clipboard. After installing,

prefix + y - copies text from the command line to clipboard.

copy mode bindings:

y - copy selection to system clipboard