Problem

When working with many windows (10+), the horizontal status bar becomes insufficient for displaying window names. Long window names get truncated, and it becomes difficult to identify and switch between windows at a glance.

The choose-tree command already provides an excellent vertical window list, but it's a modal overlay — you have to invoke it, pick a window, and it disappears. There's no way to keep a persistent vertical listing of windows visible alongside the working pane.

Proposal

Support a vertical window/session list that can be persistently displayed at the left or right edge of the terminal, similar to how the status bar persistently displays information at the top or bottom.

This could work as a narrow pane-like area managed by tmux itself (not a regular pane), showing the window list vertically — one window per line.

Use case

• Users who regularly work with 5+ windows per session and rely on window names to navigate
• Workflows where automatic-rename-format produces descriptive but longer window names that don't fit well in a single horizontal line
• Sessions with multiple active processes where quick visual scanning of all windows is important

Current workarounds

• choose-tree (modal, not persistent)
• Using a dedicated pane running a script to display tmux list-windows (fragile, wastes a pane)
• Community plugins like Tabby (external dependency, limited integration)

Notes

I understand this would be a significant addition. I'm raising this to gauge interest and see if it aligns with tmux's direction. Happy to discuss alternative approaches or provide more detail on the use case.