Set screen-title from shellscript

Question

Is it possible to set the Screen Title using a shell script?

I thought about something like sending the key commands ctrl+A shift-

Answer 1

To enable automatic title updating when jumping around with ssh, add this to ~/.bashrc:

ssh() {
  echo -n -e "\033k$1\033\\"
  /usr/bin/ssh "$@"
  echo -n -e "\033k`hostname -s`\033\\"
}
echo -n -e "\033k`hostname -s`\033\\"

See http://linuxepiphany.blogspot.com.ar/2010/05/good-screenrc-config-setup.html

Answer 2

I got this solution from experimenting with others, like @flurin-arner I started the @weston-ganger set-title(). I also used @imgx64 PROMPT_DIRTRIM suggestion. I'm also using @itseranga git branch prompt, though this has nothing to do with the question it does show what you can do with the prompt.

First as shown by weston and above

 TITLE="\[\e]2;$*\a\]"

can be used to manually set the Terminal Title, "$*" is commandline input, but not what we want.

2nd as stated I'm also adding git branch to my prompt, again not part of the question.

export PROMPT_DIRTRIM=3
parse_git_branch() {
       git branch 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/ (\1)/'
     }

export PS1="\u@\h \[\033[32m\]\w\[\033[33m\]\$(parse_git_branch)\[\033[00m\] $ "

3rd, by experiment I copied the TITLE code above, set the $* to a fixed string and tried this:

see: \[\e]2;'SomeTitleString'\a\]

export PS1="\u@\h \[\033[32m\]\w\[\033[33m\]\$(parse_git_branch)\[\033[00m\]\[\e]2;'SomeTitleString'\a\] $ "

This had the desired effect! Ultimately, I wanted the base path as my title. PS1 Params shows that \W is the base path so my solution is this:

export PS1="\u@\h \[\033[32m\]\w\[\033[33m\]\$(parse_git_branch)\[\033[00m\]\[\e]2;\W\a\] $ "

without the git branch:

export PS1="\u@\h \[\033[32m\]\w\[\033[33m\]\[\033[00m\]\[\e]2;\W\a\] $ "

resulting in a prompt with git-branch:

user@host ~/.../StudyJava (master) $  

resulting in a prompt without parse_git_branch:

   user@host ~/.../StudyJava $  

where pwd gives

/home/user/somedir1/otherdir2/StudyJava

and Terminal Title

StudyJava

NOTE: From @seff above I am essentially replacing the "My Title" with "\W"

export PS1='\[\e]0;My Title\a\]${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

Answer 3

I tried this on Ubuntu 18.10 and it only worked with PROMPT_COMMAND in ~/.bashrc. And if you override PROMPT_COMMAND, the behavior of the title changes slightly. I decided to change only if necessary:

t() {
  TITLE="$@"
  PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${TITLE}\007"'
}

enter image description here

Answer 4

set_screen_title ()
{
    echo -ne "\ek$1\e\\"
}

Answer 5

You can set the screen / xterm title using the following lines:

#!/bin/bash

mytitle="Some title"
echo -e '\033k'$mytitle'\033\\'

[UPDATE] - by request I'm also including the solution proposed by @Espo below:

Depending on your xterm version or your linux distribution the line above may or may not work and you can try the xterm-defaults:

#!/bin/bash

mytitle="Some title"
echo -e '\033]2;'$mytitle'\007'

For more on the details see: http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Xterm-Title.html#s3 or refer to the answer by @Espo below.

Answer 6

Try the below commands, no need to edit any file or configuration like ~/.bashrc, Can be used at runtime.

Set static text as title: (My Title)

export PS1='\[\e]0;My Title\a\]${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

Set local/global variable as title: ($USER)

export PS1='\[\e]0;$USER\a\]${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

Set command output as title: (hostname)

export PS1='\[\e]0;`hostname`\a\]${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

Set to default (Revert back):

export PS1='\[\e]0;\u@\h: \w\a\]${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '