mprocs: A new way to run multiple shell applications in one shell

Date:
Mon, 23 May 2022 17:09:33 GMT

Description:
With a cool process list. And it works on Linux, Mac, & Windows.

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There are a great many ways to available to run multiple shell applications
at the same time, from within the same shell instance.

These are typically known as terminal multiplexers with tmux and GNU Screen being among the most popular. Both of which allow you to divide up the shell screen into a grid pattern, with each application taking up a portion of that grid.

Well, theres a new kid on the block that does things a little bit
differently.

Enter: mprocs .

How it works:

You launch mprocs with a list of applications or shell commands you wish to run (with each as a command line parameter).

For example: mprocs nano sh sh

Will result in:

You then type Control-A to switch focus between the Processes list on the
left and the currently running shell process (on the right).

When the Processes list has focus, you can then hit a key to control that individually selected process:

Arrow up/down (or J/K) Move between each process.

X Stop running the process.

S Start running the process again (if it was stopped).

Q Quit mprocs entirely.

In this way, the Processes list in mprocs is, essentially a task manager / system monitor / task switcher.

Want one of the processes to be a server or application you are testing and another to be an IDE, text editor, or compiler process? Start, stop, and re-start them at well. Very handy for making and testing builds or configuration changes.

Ive been using mprocs all morning and it works astoundingly well. Honestly,
I could see this quickly becoming my favorite way to run multiple terminal applications inside a single shell (which is very handy when SSHing into a server).

There are only two downsides that Ive found for mprocs thus far:

The Control-A hotkey for switching focus can conflict with some applications.
It would be nice if this was easily configurable.

There is no way to add an additional running process once mprocs is running. However many processes you start mprocs with thats how many you get until you quite mprocs and start again.

That second one is the biggest issue though there is a (less than ideal) workaround:

Add as many shell sessions (with no processes running) as you think you might want to use. For example: mprocs sh sh sh sh sh

Will start mprocs with 5 shells from there you can launch any shell application you like (vim, nano, htop, etc.).

All-in-all, I like mprocs quite a lot! Considering it is a new project and the fact that I only have two issues (ones which seem rather straight forward to resolve) to complain about I am darned impressed!

I highly recommend grabbing a release from the GitHub page and taking it for
a spin. Watch the latest Linux Sucks video . Only for subscribers to The Lunduke Journal . Subscribe now





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Link to news story: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/mprocs-a-new-way-to-run-multiple


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