None of the currently posted answers works/answers the question.
As per my original question, neither setting PS1 nor PROMPT_COMMAND had any effect.
Using only a command at the command prompt, how do I change the title of the current terminal tab?
Many posts suggest this:
echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a" but it does nothing.
None of the current answers works (some don't answer the question), so for clarity:
- Once the title is changed, I don't want it to change if I change directory etc
- I don't want the same title on all tabs. I only want to set the title for the tab I run the command in
- I want multiple tabs to each have different titles
Also, the PROMPT_COMMAND variable is not set in my terminal sessions. If I set it:
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"' it has no effect.
What is the correct command?
FYI, the output of uname -a is:
11Linux d136172 3.13.0-45-generic #74-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 13 19:36:28 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
10 Answers
from @Maythux, this one works for my needs to disregard my auto-prompt current-directory on terminal.
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"' Instruction
Change the string on "New Terminal Name" with $("pwd"):
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0; $("pwd") \a"' This will automatically change the title even when you add a new tab.
I use the setting below which looks better, you can also play bash programming and set your own.
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;$(whoami)@$(hostname)|$(pwd|cut -d "/" -f 4-100)\a"' Add this setting to your ~/.bashrc.
From , a bash-specific solution is to create a custom function (see e.g. this how-to) like
# function to set terminal title function set-title() { if [[ -z "$ORIG" ]]; then ORIG=$PS1 fi TITLE="\[\e]2;$*\a\]" PS1=${ORIG}${TITLE} } which allows you to call set-title <name you want to set it to>
When the PS1 sets the title, any attempt to set the title using a command or PROMPT_COMMAND will fail, since the prompt is printed after all of them. For this reason, I prefer to keep a simple prompt while testing titles (PS1=$; unset PROMPT_COMMAND).
It is very likely that PROMPT_COMMAND is set and it is overwriting your choice of title every time the prompt is displayed. Try unsetting it and then issuing your title command:
PROMPT_COMMAND= echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a" This thread may be a little old, but here is a solution that works for me:
2Simply edit your $HOME/.bashrc file and add the following function:
set-title(){
ORIG=$PS1
TITLE="\e]2;$@\a"
PS1=${ORIG}${TITLE}
}Now whenever you want to set the title of your terminal, just enter something like:
set-title "my awesome terminal title"
Instructions
- Add settitle() to your
.bashrc. source ~/.bashrcsettitle Banana
settitle()
function settitle() { if [ $# -eq 0 ] then eval set -- "\\u@\\h: \\w" fi case $TERM in xterm*) local title="\[\033]0;$@\007\]";; *) local title='' esac local prompt=$(echo "$PS1" | sed -e 's/\\\[\\033\]0;.*\\007\\\]//') PS1="${title}${prompt}" } You can do it, either in CLI or GUI(I suppose you are using gnome-terminal, you can do for others just replace the name of app):
In CLI Run the command:
gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/title --type=string "New Terminal Name" Note: the new name is applied to all instances of terminal tabs, and not for the only current tab.
Or from GUI:
Go to Menu: Terminal --> Set Title --> Enter new title then save.
Now Why your command not work?
You should add this line to the .bashrc file and not directly to your terminal.
gedit .bashrc Add this line:
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"' Then save and source the bashrc file.
source .bashrc Based on @muru answer
PS1 sets the title, any attempt to set the title using a command or PROMPT_COMMAND will fail, since the prompt is printed after all of them
This worked in my Elementary S.O :
PS1='\u:\W\$ ' PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -en "\033]0;New terminal title\a"' I execute this in each new tab :
And as the previous image shows, I have several tabs with unique name.
16.04.1-Ubuntu
1Using bash, wmctrl, xprop, ps
1) For a long-running active program:
For example, start a program (ranger) running in a terminal, started from the desktop, change the title, once, after some delay ( 5 seconds ) when the program starts :
startranger.sh:
#!/bin/bash /usr/local/bin/changetitle.sh 5 ranger /usr/local/bin/ranger changetitle.sh:
#!/bin/bash delay="$1" shift wintitle="$*" winid=`xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | head -1 | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//' | sed 's/^0x/0x0/'` /bin/bash -c "sleep $delay; wmctrl -i -r $winid -N \"$wintitle\"" & 2) If you are running a terminal session without running an active program, update the title on a loop that ends when your terminal exits:
changetitleloop.sh 1 maintenance for server running the above will update the title of the current terminal every 1 second even if you cd (can change it multiple times), using:
changetitleloop.sh
#!/bin/bash interval="$1" shift wintitle="$*" termpid="$(ps -p $$ -o ppid= | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//')" winid=`xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | head -1 | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//' | sed 's/^0x/0x0/'` /bin/bash -c "ss=\$$; echo \$ss > /tmp/term-$termpid.pid; while x=\$(wmctrl -i -r $winid -N \"$wintitle\"); ret=\$?; sleep $interval; owner=\$(cat /tmp/term-$termpid.pid); [ \$ret -eq 0 ] && [ \$ss -eq \$owner ]; do continue; done;" & One solution may be to install the latest version of tmux.
tmux allows setting per-pane titles, enabled by this command:
tmux set -g pane-border-status top They can also be displayed on the bottom.
Titles are then set via an escape sequence:
printf '\033]2│;%s\033\\' 'My Pane Title' Each pane can have its own title and all titles show all the time.
The tmux panes will then look like this:
──0 "My Pane Title"──────┬──1 "Another Pane"─────── > │> This was tested on linux mint 18.2 (like Ubuntu) with tmux 2.8. Installation was from a tarball.
If you want to be more productive in your terminal, tmux offers lots of other features too.
