xfce4-terminal Defaults for new tab/window

Maliuta · 2024-12-08 18:38:01

Hi there,

I regularly run multiple screen sessions, on multiple machines, in multiple locations. Until now I have been running XTerm with commands like:

xterm -T <HOSTNAME> -e ssh <hostname>

That gets me an xterm ssh'd into a remote host (generally "HOSTNAME" is a shortened FQDN that has a .ssh/config entry - so if the FQDN was marbles.rock.com "HOSTNAME" would be "marbles" and there would be an .ssh/config entry for that with the host optiions).

I then moved to adding the execution of screen to the command:

xterm -T "HOSTNAME MY_SCREEN" -e 'ssh HOSTNAME -t screen -S MY_SCREEN'

Which give the same result but with a screen session on the remote host - I have correlating entries replacing screen -S with screen -D -r for reconnecting/recovering a lost connection. These commands have been collecting in the command history for "Application Finder", so I can access them quickly, but only one at a time.

Since it's a tedious procedure I figured I would bite the proverbial bullet and move to xfce4-terminal with tabbing. I have gotten as far as:

xfce4-terminal --hide-borders --fullscreen -T 'HOSTNAME SCREEN_1' -e 'ssh HOSTNAME -t "screen -S SCREEN_1"' --active-tab --tab -T 'HOSTNAME SCCREEN_2' -e 'ssh lubny -t "screen -S SCREEN_2"' --tab -T 'HOSTNAME SCREEN_3' -e 'ssh HOSTNAME -t "screen -S SCREEN_3"'

So far this is great, gives me a window with three tabs all named properly all with the correct screen sessions in them - not that I have yet figured out how to turn each tab to fullscreen and then back to a tab when I want to (which I need, but there are other things lurking).

The real issue I am having is that I can't once I have run that previous command I can't open a new window or tab from that instance of xfce4-terminal, I need to run a whole new instance.

Can anyone point me in a direction that would give me just plain ssh session on "HOSTNAME" with the keyboard shortcuts for "New Window" and "New Tab"? For me this is a more pressing issue than detaching a tab, making it fullscreen, then re-attaching it to a window. I can work with the three tabbed window, even though I preffer to break things out to fullscreen when working on something (even just breaking it out to move to another monitor on a multi-monitor setup).

For simplicities sake (and the sake of what is left of my sanity after 20+ years in the industry) I am putting these xfce4-terminal commands into shell scripts named things like "start_HOSTNAME.sh" to run screen with the "-S" option, and "recover_HOSTNAME.sh" to run screen with the "-D -r" options. This also meand I can just change copy the script over and change things like "HOSTNAME" to have connections on a new or other machine. I was hoping there might be some secret sauce environment variables I could use for the commands to execute for new tabs and windows, however google has defeated some of my google-fu by dumbing down the possible ways to determine exactly what is searched for and I can't find what I am looking for.

I would like to thank the developers of XFCE (which I have been using since before version 4 😄 ) for their work. As the above shows I like to customise things so that they work my way, not the way someone else wants me to do something (which is pretty much most OS's and most desktop interfaces)

Any help is appreciated.

ToZ · 2024-12-09 02:29:51

Hello and welcome.

It would be helpful if we knew which version of xfce4-terminal and Xfce you are using.

Can anyone point me in a direction that would give me just plain ssh session on "HOSTNAME" with the keyboard shortcuts for "New Window" and "New Tab"? For me this is a more pressing issue than detaching a tab, making it fullscreen, then re-attaching it to a window. I can work with the three tabbed window, even though I preffer to break things out to fullscreen when working on something (even just breaking it out to move to another monitor on a multi-monitor setup).

I'm not sure if I fully understand your issue, but the default shortcuts for New Window (Shift+Ctrl+N) and New Tab (Shift+Ctrl+T) should be intercepted by the xfce4-terminal and work. Of course, you may have changed these keyboard combinations.

Can you confirm that on a simple fullscreen xfce4-terminal window:

xfce4-terminal --fullscreen

...you can create a new tab by pressing Shift+Ctrl+T (or whatever shortcut you may have changed it to)?

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#1 2024-12-08 18:38:01

xfce4-terminal Defaults for new tab/window

#2 2024-12-09 02:29:51

Re: xfce4-terminal Defaults for new tab/window

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