Tabs & panes¶

Panes split in any direction, tabs move between them, and layout changes do not disturb a running session.

Three panes, each with its own tab strip — Three panes in one window, each with its own tab strip.

Splitting¶

Ctrl+Shift+Left / Ctrl+Shift+Right / Ctrl+Shift+Up / Ctrl+Shift+Down splits the focused pane toward that side. The new pane continues the current session: the SSH connection is reused, so there is no second login and no second 2FA prompt. This is configurable in Settings → Keyboard; with it off, the new pane asks what to start. Serial consoles always ask, because a serial port supports one reader.

Alt+Shift+= and Alt+Shift+- are alternative chords for the two most common splits, and the tab strip has split buttons for the mouse.

Moving around¶

Chord	What happens
`Alt`+`Left` / `Alt`+`Right` / `Alt`+`Up` / `Alt`+`Down`	Focus the pane in that direction, geometrically
`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`O`	Focus the next pane
`Alt`+`Shift`+`Left` …	Send the current tab to the neighbouring pane, splitting one off when there is none
`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`Z`	Zoom the focused pane to the whole canvas, and back
`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`.` / `Ctrl`+`Shift`+`,`	Grow / shrink the focused pane
`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`X`	Close the pane

Focus keys fall through to the shell

Alt+Left moves focus only when a pane sits to the left. When there is none, the key is passed to the shell, so Alt+Left still moves a word in readline.

Drag a divider to resize it, double-click it to even the split, or give it focus and use the arrows. Even out panes in the pane menu balances the whole layout.

Tabs¶

Each pane has a browser-style tab strip. A tab is one session: local shell, SSH, Telnet, serial, or a remote editor.

The tab context menu — The tab menu: rename, duplicate, colour flag, open in a window, add to multi-exec, and reconnect.

New tab: Ctrl+Shift+T, or the + in the strip.
Close: Ctrl+Shift+W (Cmd+W on macOS). Not Ctrl+W, which deletes a word in the shell.
Switch: Alt+1 … Alt+9 by position (Alt+9 is always the last tab), or ++ctrl+pgup++ / ++ctrl+pgdn++.
Reorder: ++ctrl+shift+pgup++ / ++ctrl+shift+pgdn++, or drag.
Rename: double-click the title.
Duplicate: Ctrl+Shift+D opens a second session on the same host.
Colour flags: assigned from the right-click menu.
Open in new window: moves the tab into its own window, on the same transport.

Each tab shows a status dot: amber while connecting, green when connected, red when the transport is gone.

Interaction between panes and tabs¶

Closing the last tab of a split pane closes the pane.
Moving a tab toward a direction where no pane exists splits one off.
Layout changes never remount a terminal, so the shell, scrollback and SSH channel survive every split, close and move.
Keystrokes typed into a pane that is still connecting are delivered once it is ready.

Default chord selection¶

Muxus takes as few keys from the shell as possible:

Ctrl+W deletes a word, and Ctrl+2 … Ctrl+8 send their control characters. Closing is therefore Ctrl+Shift+W, and tabs use Alt+1 … Alt+9.
Chords follow the character printed on the key cap, so Ctrl+Shift+Z is the key labelled Z on QWERTZ and AZERTY. Arrows and keys whose character a modifier mangles use their physical position.
Ctrl++ / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0 zoom the terminal font only. The interface scale is a preference rather than a chord.

All commands share one keymap. Search it in the quick launcher, or review and rebind it in the keyboard sheet (Ctrl+Shift+/).

The full list