Bash – How to Open Terminal, Split to 9 Terminals, and Switch Between Them Using One Script

bashgnome-terminatorperlshell-scriptterminal

I would like to open a terminal, split it to lets say 9 parts (3×3) 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?

Best Answer

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

  1. 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:

    enter image description here

  2. Right click on the terminator window and chose "Preferences". Once the Preferences window is open, go to "Layouts" and click "Add":

    enter image description here

  3. That will populate the Layout list with your new layout:

    enter image description here

  4. 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:

    enter image description here

    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.

  5. 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 cchapple@139.124.66.43'
      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:

enter image description here

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.

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