Bash - Update terminal title by running a second c

Question

On my terminal in Ubuntu, I often run programs which keep running for a long time. And since there are a lot of these programs, I keep forgetting which terminal is for which program, unless I tab through all of those. So I wanted to find a way to update my terminal title to the program name, whenever I run a command. I don't want to do it manually.

I use gnome-terminal, but answer shouldn't really depend on that. Basically, If I'm able to run a second command, then I can simply use gconftool command to update the title. So I was hoping to find a way to capture the command in bash and update the title after every command. How do I do that?

Answer 1

Based on the the need to auto position putty windows I have modified my /etc/bash.bashrc file on a Debian/Ubuntu system. I have posted the full contents for completeness but the relevant bit to starts on the # Display command ... comment line.

# System-wide .bashrc file for interactive bash(1) shells.

# To enable the settings / commands in this file for login shells as well,
# this file has to be sourced in /etc/profile.

# If not running interactively, don't do anything
[ -z "$PS1" ] && return

# check the window size after each command and, if necessary,
# update the values of LINES and COLUMNS.
shopt -s checkwinsize

# set variable identifying the chroot you work in (used in the prompt below)
if [ -z "${debian_chroot:-}" ] && [ -r /etc/debian_chroot ]; then
    debian_chroot=$(cat /etc/debian_chroot)
fi

# set a fancy prompt (non-color, overwrite the one in /etc/profile)
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

# Display command run in title which allows us to distinguish Kitty/Putty
# windows and re-position easily using AutoSizer window utility. Based on a
# post here: http://mg.pov.lt/blog/bash-prompt.html
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    # Show the currently running command in the terminal title:
    # http://www.davidpashley.com/articles/xterm-titles-with-bash.html
    show_command_in_title_bar()
    {
        case "$BASH_COMMAND" in
            *\033]0*)
                # The command is trying to set the title bar as well;
                # this is most likely the execution of $PROMPT_COMMAND.
                # In any case nested escapes confuse the terminal, so don't
                # output them.
                ;;
            *)
                echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}: ${BASH_COMMAND}\007"
                ;;
        esac
    }
    trap show_command_in_title_bar DEBUG
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

# Commented out, don't overwrite xterm -T "title" -n "icontitle" by default.
# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
#case "$TERM" in
#xterm*|rxvt*)
#    PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME}: ${PWD}\007"'
#    ;;
#*)
#    ;;
#esac

# enable bash completion in interactive shells
if ! shopt -oq posix; then
  if [ -f /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]; then
    . /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion
  elif [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
    . /etc/bash_completion
  fi
fi

# if the command-not-found package is installed, use it
if [ -x /usr/lib/command-not-found -o -x /usr/share/command-not-found/command-not-found ]; then
        function command_not_found_handle {
                # check because c-n-f could've been removed in the meantime
                if [ -x /usr/lib/command-not-found ]; then
                   /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/command-not-found -- "$1"
                   return $?
                elif [ -x /usr/share/command-not-found/command-not-found ]; then
                   /usr/bin/python /usr/share/command-not-found/command-not-found -- "$1"
                   return $?
                else
                   printf "%s: command not found\n" "$1" >&2
                   return 127
                fi
        }
fi

Answer 2

I see what stoutie is trying to do, except it's a lot more work than needed. And doesn't cause all sorts of other potentially bad things that can occur as a result of redefining 'cd' and putting in all of that testing just to change directories. Bash has built in support for most of this.

You can put this in your .bashrc anywhere after you set your current PS1 prompt (this way it just prepends it)

# If this is an xterm set the titlebar to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PS1="\[\e]0;\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac