How to open terminal, split to 9 terminals and switch between them using one script?

Question

I would like to open a terminal, split it to lets say 9 parts (3x3) and execute some bash script. But for each terminal part different script.

Can this be done using perl, python or even bash?

How can I switch between those little terminals without using keyboard shortcuts?

Oh, by the way, I'm using terminator. And if there is some other terminal emulator that enables such a functionality, which is it?

terminator is not a shell. There are two different terminal emulators called terminator (only one of which I believe can split the screen). — Stéphane Chazelas
– Stéphane Chazelas, Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:11
Ah, thanks .. then I'd like to know how to split terminator using script? :) And switch between those parts? — jirislav
– jirislav, Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:13
I've never used it and don't have the time to research it right now, but I think (not sure though) that byobu could help you if you're running the terminals on a remote system -- see help.ubuntu.com/community/Byobu. Byobu runs on many *nix distributions — Clive van Hilten
– Clive van Hilten, Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:20
As @ClivevanHilten mention and answered here it can be done with friendly Byobu (which by default sit on top of tmux). — Pablo A
– Pablo A, Commented May 24, 2017 at 22:55

BeastOfCaerbannog · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-13 09:10:45Z

To plagiarize myself, you can set up a profile with your desired settings (instructions adapted from here):

Run terminator and set up the layout you want. You can use Ctrl+Shift+E to split windows vertically and Ctrl+Shift+O (that's O as in oodles, not zero) to split horizontally. For this example, I have created a layout with 6 panes:
Right click on the terminator window and choose Preferences. Once the Preferences window is open, go to Layouts and click Add:
That will populate the Layouts list with your new layout:
Find each of the terminals you have created in the layout and click on them. Then on the right, enter the command you want to run in them on startup:

IMPORTANT: Note that the command is followed by ; bash. If you don't do that, the terminals will not be accessible, since they will run the command you give and exit. You need to launch a shell after each command to be able to use the terminals.

Once you have set all the commands, click Close and then exit terminator.

Open the terminator config file ~/.config/terminator/config and delete the section under layouts for the default config. Then change the name of the layout you created to default. It should look something like this:

 [global_config]
 [keybindings]
 [profiles]
   [[default]]
 [layouts]
   [[default]]
     [[[child0]]]
       position = 446:100
       type = Window
       order = 0
       parent = ""
       size = 885, 550
     [[[child1]]]
       position = 444
       type = HPaned
       order = 0
       parent = child0
     [[[child2]]]
       position = 275
       type = VPaned
       order = 0
       parent = child1
     [[[child5]]]
       position = 219
       type = HPaned
       order = 1
       parent = child1
     [[[child6]]]
       position = 275
       type = VPaned
       order = 0
       parent = child5
     [[[child9]]]
       position = 275
       type = VPaned
       order = 1
       parent = child5
     [[[terminal11]]]
       profile = default
       command = 'df -h; bash'
       type = Terminal
       order = 1
       parent = child9
     [[[terminal10]]]
       profile = default
       command = 'export foo="bar" && cd /var/www/; bash'
       type = Terminal
       order = 0
       parent = child9
     [[[terminal3]]]
       profile = default
       command = 'ssh -Yp 24222 [email protected]'
       type = Terminal
       order = 0
       parent = child2
     [[[terminal4]]]
       profile = default
       command = 'top; bash'
       type = Terminal
       order = 1
       parent = child2
     [[[terminal7]]]
       profile = default
       command = 'cd /etc; bash'
       type = Terminal
       order = 0
       parent = child6
     [[[terminal8]]]
       profile = default
       command = 'cd ~/dev; bash'
       type = Terminal
       order = 1
       parent = child6
 [plugins]

The final result is that when you run terminator it will open with 6 panes, each of which has run or is running the commands you have specified:

Also, you can set up as many different profiles as you wish and either launch terminator with the -p switch giving a profile name, or manually switch to whichever profile you want after launching.

Terdon, thank you! This is probably where I learned to write that config file! — dotancohen
– dotancohen, Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:36
"You need to launch a shell after each command to be able to use the terminals." Amazing - this was not intuitive at all when I initially tried it. They should include some kind of checkbox to automatically enable this. — dtmland
– dtmland, Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 21:29

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-20 14:23:53Z

6

Are you searching for terminal multiplexer tmux.

https://github.com/tmux/tmux

edited Oct 20, 2017 at 14:23

CommunityBot

1

answered Nov 17, 2014 at 15:31

Sujit Maharjan

1,4753 gold badges10 silver badges10 bronze badges

Yes, this seems as another possibility how to accomplish what I need to. Thanks :)

jirislav
– jirislav

2014-11-17 15:43:17 +00:00
Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:43
tmux is excellent!

dotancohen
– dotancohen

2014-11-17 15:43:58 +00:00
Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:43

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dotancohen · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-17 15:37:56Z

4

Back when I was using terminator this is the rc file that I used to open a bunch of terminals and run applications. Save it to .config/terminator/config.

[global_config]
  title_hide_sizetext = True
  enabled_plugins = LaunchpadCodeURLHandler, APTURLHandler, LaunchpadBugURLHandler
[keybindings]
[profiles]
  [[default]]
    font = DejaVu Sans Mono 9
    cursor_blink = False
    scrollback_infinite = True
[layouts]
  [[default]]

    [[[root]]]
      position = -4:0
      type = Window
      order = 0 
      parent = ""
      size = 1072, 1884

    [[[grand]]]
      position = 536 
      type = HPaned
      order = 0 
      parent = root
    [[[left]]]
      position = 942 
      type = VPaned
      order = 0 
      parent = grand
    [[[right]]]
      position = 942 
      type = VPaned
      order = 1 
      parent = grand



    [[[terminal1]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 0 
      parent = left
      command = "cd ~/code/foo; bash"
    [[[terminal2]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 1 
      parent = left
      command = "cd ~/bar/baz; bash"



    [[[terminal3]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 1 
      parent = right
      command = ""
    [[[terminal4]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 0 
      parent = right
      command = "cmus; bash"



[plugins]

EDIT: Note that this information probably came from Terdon's post on a much earlier thread. I've been using this setup for a few months, but Terdon's post here looks very familiar!

edited Nov 17, 2014 at 15:37

answered Nov 17, 2014 at 15:26

dotancohen

16.5k28 gold badges87 silver badges124 bronze badges

This is what I was looking for - how to split terminal & execute particular scripts - thanks! But I wouldn't like to execute it everytime like this. Is there a possibility to have more of those configs & open each depending on what I need? Let's say by adding parameter --config2 or --config1 ?

jirislav
– jirislav

2014-11-17 15:33:27 +00:00
Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:33
You don't add more config files, you add sections to the config file. See Terdon's post, he explains it very well, in fact I learned this from his post on an earlier thread.

dotancohen
– dotancohen

2014-11-17 15:39:04 +00:00
Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:39
Oh, I see ... Thus I accepted his answer as most helpful. But thanks anyway.

jirislav
– jirislav

2014-11-17 15:41:29 +00:00
Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:41
Good choice! I actually wanted to suggest to accept his answer as the information did come from his hard work!

dotancohen
– dotancohen

2014-11-17 15:43:30 +00:00
Commented Nov 17, 2014 at 15:43

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Aleksey Chudov · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-24 13:29:46Z

2

Wrapper script for splitting Terminator terminal emulator https://github.com/AlekseyChudov/terminator-split

answered Dec 24, 2016 at 13:29

Aleksey Chudov

211 bronze badge

2

You should include the relevant information here, once github is gone your answer loses all of its potential value.

Anthon
– Anthon

2016-12-24 14:24:19 +00:00
Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 14:24
1

seems good.. but how do I run this script?

Sachin
– Sachin

2018-08-29 21:24:04 +00:00
Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 21:24
1

terminator-split has a lot of potential, but there seems to be no way to run different commands in the different splits, and the -m argument shown in the examples is not listed in the usage summary

bitinerant
– bitinerant

2019-07-24 11:58:33 +00:00
Commented Jul 24, 2019 at 11:58

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