Unable to use additional plugins in the themes

[choovick]

Happy holidays, and thank you for the amazing plugin—there are literally dozens of us using it! 😆

I finally found some time to report and provide a workaround for a small annoyance I encountered.

Use case: I wanted to fancy up my theme using this plugin: https://github.com/MunifTanjim/tmux-mode-indicator.

Issue: The script switches themes by sourcing only the theme files and then creating a symlink. I noticed that my TMP is working on the initial TMUX load, but after triggering notify, #{tmux_mode_indicator} becomes empty.

Workaround steps:

1. Update tmux-theme-mode.sh to load .tmux.conf instead of only the theme file. Additionally, creating the symlink before triggering the source helps fix the missing $TMUX_THEME_LINK file earlier.

   diff --git a/scripts/tmux-theme-mode.sh b/scripts/tmux-theme-mode.sh
   index 167a875..2789e89 100755
   --- a/scripts/tmux-theme-mode.sh
   +++ b/scripts/tmux-theme-mode.sh
   @@ -50,8 +50,8 @@ tmux_set_theme_mode() {
                   echo "The configured theme is not readable: $theme_path" >&2
                   exit 2
           fi
   -       tmux source-file "$theme_path"
           ln -sf "$theme_path" $TMUX_THEME_LINK
   +       tmux source-file "$HOME/.tmux.conf"
    }

2. Change the initialization order in the .tmux.conf.

   Here's how I do it: https://github.com/choovick/.dotfiles/blob/main/stow/tmux/.tmux.conf#L140.

   # dark-notify themes
   set -g @plugin 'erikw/tmux-dark-notify'
   set -g @dark-notify-theme-path-light '$HOME/.tmux/tmux-gruvbox-light.conf'
   set -g @dark-notify-theme-path-dark '$HOME/.tmux/tmux-gruvbox-dark.conf'
   # dark by default
   if-shell "test ! -e ~/.local/state/tmux/tmux-dark-notify-theme.conf" \
       "source-file $HOME/.tmux/tmux-gruvbox-dark.conf"
   # dark notify theme is it was triggered
   if-shell "test -e ~/.local/state/tmux/tmux-dark-notify-theme.conf" \
       "source-file ~/.local/state/tmux/tmux-dark-notify-theme.conf"
   
   # Initialize TMUX plugin manager (keep this line at the very bottom of tmux.conf)
   run '~/.tmux/plugins/tpm/tpm'

   • TPM remains at the end, as we’re re-sourcing the entire config.
   • The MunifTanjim/tmux-mode-indicator plugin now works with the theme.
   • if-shell "test ! -e ~/.local/state/tmux/tmux-dark-notify-theme.conf" ensures the default theme is used on the first launch if the symlink is not present; otherwise, the symlink will be used.

Risk: I’m not sure if it’s still an issue, but I’ve heard that re-sourcing .tmux.conf can cause problems with some plugins. However, I haven’t encountered any yet.

This is my approach to resolving the issue, but I’m open to additional suggestions on incorporating other plugins into themes.

[erikw]

Hello, and thank you for looking in to this.

Yes I think that recall that I wanted to avoid resourcing the whole tmux.conf. I light have experienced some issues myself either plugins, or to make the plugin more snappy (can take some time to resource if it’s a complex setup).

I will be unable to look closer at this still for a while. Until then, feel free to have a fork with the fix that works for you:)

[choovick]

Ok I think I have found a simpler workaround! Not sure why I did not think of that before...

choovick/.dotfiles@222cf27

basically run '~/.tmux/plugins/tpm/tpm' at the end of the theme seems to do it as well!

As I maintain my own copy of the theme in my stow repo, this will work will less complications for me. Thx again for amazing plugin. Really helps when I need to work outside under the sun using light desktop while dark inside.