TMUX using HJKL to navigate panes

Question

Standard TMUX is set to use ctrl-b + [up, down, left, right] when navigating between panes.

I would like to make it so that I can use ctrl-b (or the prefix of my choice) + [h,j,k,l].

I thought I had done this with the following vi key in my ~/.tmux.conf settings:

set -g status-keys vi
setw -g mode-keys vi

Yet this didn't seem to change anything (at least not what I was looking for). How can I get this to work. And yes my .tmux.conf is working properly. I can provide more info if needed.

Update:

Here is my full .tmux.conf after trying to get it to work:

set -g status-keys vi
setw -g mode-keys vi

set -g prefix C-a
unbind C-b
bind C-a send-prefix


# smart pane switching with awareness of vim splits
bind h select-pane -L
bind j select-pane -D
bind k select-pane -U
bind l select-pane -R

Alternatively, I have tried using this w/ vim-tmux-navigator Vim plugin:

# smart pane switching with awareness of vim splits
bind -n C-h run "(tmux display-message -p '#{pane_current_command}' | grep -iq vim && tmux send-keys C-h) || tmux select-pane -L"
bind -n C-j run "(tmux display-message -p '#{pane_current_command}' | grep -iq vim && tmux send-keys C-j) || tmux select-pane -D"
bind -n C-k run "(tmux display-message -p '#{pane_current_command}' | grep -iq vim && tmux send-keys C-k) || tmux select-pane -U"
bind -n C-l run "(tmux display-message -p '#{pane_current_command}' | grep -iq vim && tmux send-keys C-l) || tmux select-pane -R"
bind -n C-\ run "(tmux display-message -p '#{pane_current_command}' | grep -iq vim && tmux send-keys 'C-\\') || tmux select-pane -l"

source

Which also doesn't work either. I am a bit stumped.

Answer 1

You can do this as follows:

bind h select-pane -L
bind j select-pane -D
bind k select-pane -U
bind l select-pane -R

Note that mode-keys refers to using vi-like navigation within a buffer and status-keys refers to using vi-like editing within the status bar, but neither refers to switching between panes.

Answer 2

Did you remember to source your ~/.tmux.conf file? After making any changes in this file you need to enter the following command to see any of the changes take place

tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf