automatic-rename won't enable

[Adam Porter]

byobu:
  Installed: 5.17-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 5.17-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 5.17-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

~/.byobu$ rgrep automatic-rename .
./.tmux.conf:set-window-option -g automatic-rename on
./profile.tmux:set-window-option -g automatic-rename on

~/.byobu$ byobu

~/.byobu$ tmux show-window-options
automatic-rename off

~/.byobu$ tmux show-window-options -g | grep automatic-rename
automatic-rename on

Where is automatic-rename being turned off for the current window? I have to enable it manually for individual windows after starting byobu or it doesn't work.

[Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland)]

Okay, interesting. It looks like the hack I have in the keybinding for F2 is breaking this.

As a temporary workaround, simply add these two lines into your ~/.byobu/.tmux.conf:

set-window-option -g automatic-rename on
bind-key -n F2 new-window

[Karthik T (sir-nigel-loring)]

I am having this same issue, but on byobu 5.43, and on a Mac (is it a different issue?). The setting refuses to turn on.

karthikt@Karthiks-MacBook-Pro:~
$ tmux setw -g automatic-rename on
set option: automatic-rename -> on

karthikt@Karthiks-MacBook-Pro:~
$ tmux show-window-options
automatic-rename off

Ive tried the solution given (by entering into the terminal, not adding to rc, but should be the same right?) but no dice.

karthikt@Karthiks-MacBook-Pro:~
$ tmux setw -g automatic-rename on
set option: automatic-rename -> on

karthikt@Karthiks-MacBook-Pro:~
$ tmux bind-key -n F2 new-window

karthikt@Karthiks-MacBook-Pro:~
$ tmux show-window-options
automatic-rename off

[Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland)]

Hmm, interesting. Yes, I did just reproduce what you demonstrated Karthic.

kirkland@x230:~/src/byobu/byobu⟫ tmux setw -g automatic-rename on
set option: automatic-rename -> on
kirkland@x230:~/src/byobu/byobu⟫ tmux show-window-options
automatic-rename off
kirkland@x230:~/src/byobu/byobu⟫ byobu -v
byobu version 5.74
tmux 1.8

[Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland)]

Oh, hang on... If you set it -g, then you need to show it with -g:

kirkland@x230:~/src/byobu/byobu⟫ tmux setw -g automatic-rename on
set option: automatic-rename -> on
kirkland@x230:~/src/byobu/byobu⟫ tmux show-window-options -g |grep automatic-rename
automatic-rename on

[Mike Miller (mtmiller)]

The automatic-rename option is indeed being disabled for each new window, even though the global option is enabled. Excerpt from man tmux:

This flag is automatically disabled for an individual window when a name is specified at creation with new-window or new-session, or later with rename-window...

So because byobu is creating new windows with a name of "-", the automatic-rename option is disabled in each new window.

I can confirm that if F2 is set to just "new-window", then all windows created after window 0 do have automatic-rename enabled. But there is no way to prevent window 0 from being created with the name "-".

This looks like it originates at http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kirkland/byobu/trunk/revision/1876, with the rationale being that window names take up too much of the tmux status bar. At that point the window name was set to an empty string. This was later changed to "-" in http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kirkland/byobu/trunk/revision/2212 to fix bug #1215210.