Some fast way to save and restore tabs of Terminal?

Question

I have a Terminal window with a dozen named tabs open.

I would like to save the current configuration and have it restored with names and directories.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

To save configuration into /tmp/cfg:

gnome-terminal --save-config=/tmp/cfg

To load it back:

gnome-terminal --load-config=/tmp/cfg 

---

UPDATE

After playing around with bash I created following script which stores tab names into file /tmp/test as well:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

gnome-terminal --save-config=/tmp/test

LINES=($(grep -n '\[Terminal' /tmp/test | cut -d: -f1))
for ((i=0; i<$(grep '\[Terminal' /tmp/test | wc -l); i++))
do
    TITLE=$(xprop -id $WINDOWID WM_NAME | sed -e 's/WM_NAME(STRING) = "//' -e 's/"$//';xdotool key ctrl+Page_Down;)
    sed -ri "$((${LINES[$i]}+$i))s/.*/&\nTitle=$TITLE/" /tmp/test 
done

To assign names properly you have to run it from first tab of your terminal. Loading same as before:

gnome-terminal --load-config=/tmp/test

EXPLANATION:

I can use following to get tab name:

xprop -id $WINDOWID WM_NAME

I can use following to jump to next tab:

xdotool key ctrl+Page_Down;

I'm getting number of tabs after grepping configuration file I saved before:

$(grep '\[Terminal' /tmp/test | wc -l)

So I can iterate over tabs inside a loop. I have to add "Title=titlename" entry for each tab configuration section in file saved before. To do so, first I'm creating an array of line numbers where I'll be adding lines.

LINES=($(grep -n '\[Terminal' /tmp/test | cut -d: -f1))

I'm adding "Title=titlename" line inside of loop iterating over tabs:

sed -ri "$((${LINES[$i]}+$i))s/.*/&\nTitle=$TITLE/" /tmp/test 

Answer 2

An alternative is to just use Byobu. Press F2 to open new terminals inside it. Use F3 and F4 to switch left and right between terminals.

Close the GUI window anytime you want. When you reopen Byobu all your terminals are restored :)

Answer 3

I tried the below options after restoring the saved settings and the Title is also restored properly.

1. Go Settings->Profiles and select on the Current Profile you are using
2. Click on Edit and Go to "Title and command" Tab
3. Make Initial Title Blank
4. Select "Keep Initial Title" Option in the drop down box below.

This option avoid your initial title set to be overwritten.

Hope This helps and a great script indeed. Save a lot of time whenever u reboot and I can happily reboot my virtual box frequently.

Thanks!!

Answer 4

I Tried one more option,

I changed my default title for Terminal to use the Intital value in ~/.bashrc, rather than changing the ~/.profile settings.

# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
    PS1="$PS1"
    ;;
*)
    ;;
esac

If You do this, there is no need to change your Terminal Profile.
When you execute gnome-terminal --load-config all the tab names are restored properly. And you can also change as you like it and save the tabs again!!

Answer 5

I found a way to do it that I think is faster.

1. Creates a profile with the title and the name you want like Yoga said.

2. Type:

   gnome-terminal --tab-with-profile=PROFILENAME1 --tab-with-profile=PROFILENAME2 ... --tab-with-profile=PROFILENAME999
   

I made an alias with this command and it worked pretty fine for me. I just type workflow and a Terminal appears with 3 tabs and the titles that I chose in the profile definition that are placed into the tabs.

On my .bashrc file I placed:

alias workflow='gnome-terminal --tab-with-profile=Git --tab-with-profile=Run | sublime-text &'

Answer 6

Screen or Byobu are my preferred methods of managing complex workflow in the terminal, and both allow saving your configurations.

Answer 7

A little improvement to the existed script which also checks xdotool installed on system and adds variable for changing path

#!/bin/bash

SAVEPATH=/tmp/termprofile

if [ ! -f /usr/bin/xdotool ]; then
        echo "please install 'xdotool'"
        exit 1
fi

gnome-terminal --save-config=$SAVEPATH

LINES=($(grep -n '\[Terminal' $SAVEPATH | cut -d: -f1))
for ((i=0; i<$(grep '\[Terminal' $SAVEPATH | wc -l); i++))
do
    TITLE=$(xprop -id $WINDOWID WM_NAME | sed -e 's/WM_NAME(STRING) = "//' -e 's/"$//';xdotool key ctrl+Page_Down;)
    sed -ri "$((${LINES[$i]}+$i))s/.*/&\nTitle=$TITLE/" $SAVEPATH
done

Answer 8

Expanding on Nyakin's answer above, this script will work for multiple window and tab configurations and correctly save tab titles for all tabs that have them.

This is currently tested on gnome-terminal 3.2 but could be configured for any terminal program with a similar save-config functionality.

This requires the 'xprop', 'xdotool', and 'wmctrl' tools.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

FILE="$1"
gnome-terminal --save-config=$FILE

WINDOWLINES=$(wmctrl -lx | grep gnome-terminal.Gnome-terminal)
WINDOWNUM=$(echo "$WINDOWLINES" | wc -l)
TABLISTS=$(grep "^Terminals" $FILE)

for ((i=1; i<=$WINDOWNUM; i++))
do
    WINDOWLINE=$(echo "$WINDOWLINES" | sed -n "$i{p;q}")
    WINDOW_ID=$(echo "$WINDOWLINE" | cut -d' ' -f1)
    #Switch to window
    wmctrl -i -a $WINDOW_ID

    LINE=$(echo "$TABLISTS" | sed -n "$i{p;q}"); LINE=${LINE#Terminals=}
    TERMINALNUM=$(echo "$LINE" | grep -o ';' | wc -l)
    #go to first tab of the window if more than 1
    [ $TERMINALNUM -gt 1 ] && xdotool key alt+1 && sleep .1

    for tab in ${LINE//;/ }
    do
        #Get the current tab title
        TITLE=$(xprop -id $WINDOW_ID WM_NAME | sed -e 's/WM_NAME(STRING) = "//' -e 's/"$//')
        #Insert it into the config file
        [ "$TITLE" == "${TITLE//WM_NAME/}" ] && sed -ri "/\[${tab}\]/aTitle=${TITLE}" $FILE
        #Move to the next tab in the window
        xdotool key ctrl+Page_Down
    done
done

Answer 9

I've also looked for that feature in Gnome terminal but couldn't find it. The best option I found so far is to use konsole. It allows you to bookmark your tabs, so that you can get back to them by choosing them from a bookmarks menu. I hope this helps.

Answer 10

Similar to Yoga's method, Edit >> Profile Preferences >> Title and Command >>Title >> When terminal commands set their own titles: >> "Prepend initial title"

Then execute: gnome-terminals --save-config=terminals-cfg

close terminals windows

open a new terminal, and in it execute: gnome-terminals --load-config=terminals-cfg

Works good for me, all titles kept.

Answer 11

Hyper (https://github.com/zeit/hyper) is a good cross platform alternative written in JavaScript and bundled with Electron.

There's a PR that is going to add support for session save/restore out of the box: https://github.com/zeit/hyper/pull/945