Zellij: A terminal workspace with batteries included

I don't even use a terminal to run shell commands.

Keyboards are higher bandwidth man-machine interfaces than mouse + GUI unless what you're exchanging is spatial information, which is typically not the case for writing software.

There is a higher learning curve, and we can argue about the tradeoffs you make, but some powerful tools can be difficult to learn to use. Complexity != bad design; sometimes you're just exposing an underlying problem space that can't be simplified without being cut off from part of the solution space.

GUIs are often mouse-centric, resource-hungry.

TUIs and CLIs are often keyboard centric only use as many resources as it takes to do the task, and then minimal resources to draw the text. Most CLIs also follow the Unix philosophy of doing one thing well, so you can get an output from a CLI and then pipe it into another.

At work I literally use the same workflow at home across two different operating systems because they both share a terminal. I don't even know how to switch workspace on a Mac because I don't need to, tmux sessions fulfil the same task.

It's quite often useful to have multiple tabs or panes in your terminal. Zellij does this. It's a terminal multiplexer, like tmux. Mostly just a bit more beginner-friendly and polished.

So obviously it's terminal-centric.

Extremes are on both ends. Some people want to use a terminal for all, some don't want a terminal at all.

I'm a terminal guy because most UI I use is just unintuitive and requires a lot of mouse clicking - using mouse is just inconvenient to me. And often there are no tools for what I want to do, or rather, I'd need to open many tools to do something simple like change a file on a remote machine.

But I like a nice IDE, I use DB explorers, I use cloud code to write GUI for data processing and reporting visuals. Terminal is just a "killer app" that's useful for almost everything. So, if you're using regardless, why not make the experience better?

The author's father agrees with you, which is pretty funny.

For me it's because it's because most things are faster, easier, and don't change (what you learn retains it's value, and doesn't become worthless when the new hotness arrives). So for me it's the other way around; everything should be in the terminal, with a GUI for that one time you need it (`open .` on Mac to open Finder).

> It should be one component of all the tools available to the programmer.

> All text editors worth using have a way to open a terminal for that one time you need it.

Is this not somewhat self-contradictory? Having the terminal in the editor or having the editor in the terminal are both about having one tool that rules the others. The only difference is which one you choose to be the ruler.

It's a terminal multiplexer. A bit like tmux, but with a better (IMO) UI.

The about page says that it is a terminal multiplexer. Like gnu screen and that hipster version called tmux.

If the source is known, it is not less bad that downloading a program and running it

It's just assumed you'll run it in an isolated container, or some other sandbox...

i've switched over and really enjoy it. i feel like it's largely self documenting, what are your biggest hurdles?

For something as simple as a terminal multiplexer, if you aren't seeing immediate value in a switch maybe its fine if you stick with what you have. You don't always need to be on the newest thing. I prefer zellij over tmux, but it is evolutionary not revolutionary. Instead of forcing yourself, save the effort and focus on something more valuable.

I recently realized that tmux’s bindings still work inside Zellij so I’ve just been using tmux bindings and haven’t had to adjust at all

I was confused by its plugins. Despite reading docs over a few days I still have no idea what does runtime for plugins look like, does zellij download them once? on each server start? on each plugin call? and since some features like a switching to a session from another session without spawning child zellij process is available only as plugin, that adds up the confusion, like am I hitting github every time when I switch sessions?

I didn't manage to find a way to update existing session layout when the layout config changed, only to recreate it, which is super boresome when you tinkering with plugin config that is embedded in layout config.

Resurrected sessions needs to be restored manually via somewhat lagging session manager, there's no cli api for that, in general when you need something to be done in another session, you can't.

The only good built-in feature I found is stacking layout showing running command in pane, but I delegate it to tabs in niri now.

Overall I would say if you're long time tmux user, switching to zellij isn't worth it. If you're new to concept of terminal emulators, zellij is much more friendlier, and I'm sure plugins would mature, docs would improve.

I built a project to add a terminal emulator to the browser (using a chrome extension): https://github.com/pomdtr/tweety.

I'm working on a `tweety edit` command which open arbitrary files in your $EDITOR of choice in a new tab.

You’ve basically described vscode!

It's not an alternative to kitty; it's an alternative to tmux or GNU screen.

I believe it's positioned to be more user-friendly than tmux but I've already got things memorised with tmux and it wasn't bringing anything new to the table, so I didn't try zellij for more than a few days.

Ha! I've been using tmux for years and I didn't realize one could do this.