Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 09:39:57 -0500 (EST) From: Shawn Halpenny <malachai@iname.com> To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Burton Sampley <bsampley@slip.net>, Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Subject: Re: Dynamic title in XTerm bound to F8 (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980206093715.5160C-100000@sun38> In-Reply-To: <19980206132625.47987@freebie.lemis.com>
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On Fri, 6 Feb 1998, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On Thu, 5 February 1998 at 18:15:01 -0800, Burton Sampley wrote:
> >>
> >> I don't understand why this should interest the ISPs, so I'm replying
> >> only to -questions.
> >
> > Thanks for the help. I've been 'banging my head against a brick wall'
> > trying to figure this out. I finally did figure out a solution shortly
> > after submitting my request for help.
> >
> > The reason I think ISP's might be interested is if they manage more than
> > one box using XFree86 and xterm.
>
> Well, sure, but that goes for just about everybody who uses xterms. I
> really don't think you should be spamming -isp with this.
>
> > It can be quite convent to just hit 1 single key to update the xterm
> > title to the hostname of the box they are currently working on,
> > especially if they need to minimize more than one xterm (ie, if
> > you're changing DNS entries on more than one DNS server).
>
> It would be a lot more convenient to have it happen automatically.
> Here's my cd script (bash):
>
> cd ()
> {
> command cd $*
> xtset -t "%u (%T) %H:%D"
> xtset -i "%u@%H:%D"
> }
>
> This sets different strings for the title bar (longer) and the icon
> (shorter).
>
> > The solution is:
> >
> >> /.Xdefaults:
> > xterm*VT100.translations: #override\
> > None<key>F8: string("echo \\"^V^[]0;`hostname`^V^G\\"") \
> > string(0x0d) \n\
> >
> > In the above string, "^V^[" is produced with the following key sequence in
> > vi "ctrl-v ctrl-v ctrl-v esc" and "^G" is produced with "ctrl-v ctrl-g".
> > The \\ correctly escapes the inside set of double quotes. NOTE: I've
> > only tried this with csh and derivatives (ie, tcsh) on both ends.
> >
> > NOTE: For whoever's interested, in the command above, 0 specifies the
> > regular title and the minimized title; 2 will change only the regular
> > title and 1 will change only the minimized title.
> >
> > I verified this works by ssh'ing into several remote accounts and pressing
> > F8. It did what I wanted it to do.
>
> Sure, but it requires you to hit a key, and it takes away any other
> purpose that this key might have.
>
> Greg
>
As a side note, those people who use a recent version of bash can
insert this string directly into their prompt. I've found this
especially handy when rsh'ing between many hosts and having my xterm
title change to represent my current host no matter what box I'm on.
Doesn't involve any extra key presses and doesn't involve aliasing
commands. I know it does not work with bash versions < 1.14.6, and
that it does work with at least version 2.01.1.
As an example:
export PS1="\[^[]2;$USER@$HOST^G\]\u@\h:\w\$ "
The "\[" and "\]" are necessary to prevent bash from taking the
string in between them and using it to calculate the wrap column for
the current line (without them, bash thinks your prompt is much
longer than it actually appears). The stuff between them sets the
xterm title. The stuff after the "\]" is your favorite prompt.
Remember that the "^[" and the "^G" are the escape and bell
characters, respectively.
--
Shawn Halpenny
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