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Asked: 2019-03-08 00:38:39 +0800 CST

How to set the title in Terminal

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In previous versions of Ubuntu, like 14.04, it was possible to set the title of each terminal tab via the menu: Terminal -> Set Title ...

In 18.04, there is still the entry Terminal with options like Set Character Encoding, but Set Title is missing.

So how can I set the title in newer versions?

gnome-terminal

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This function is removed since gnome 3
    But, the gnome 2 terminal has been forked as mate-terminal, it has the function you want.

    sudo apt-get install mate-terminal

    If you want to keep the gnome 3 terminal and agree to rename tabs from command line, you can try this:

    1- Add a function 'set-title' to the .bashrc
    2- Rename a terminal title with set-title The New Title Name

    nano ~/.bashrc

##Add the following to the .bashrc file
function set-title() {
  if [[ -z "$ORIG" ]]; then
    ORIG=$PS1
  fi
  TITLE="\[\e]2;$*\a\]"
  PS1=${ORIG}${TITLE}
}

    Usage : set-title My Tab Title

    • 10

  2. In Ubuntu 20.04

    PS1=$PS1"\[\e]0;New_Terminal_Name\a\]"

    \[ begin a sequence of non-printing characters

    \e]0; is the char sequence for setting the terminal title. Bash identifies this sequence and set the tile with the following characters. Number 0 turns out to be the value to reference the title property.

    New_Terminal_Name is the tile we gave

    \a is the ASCII bell character, also in this case, it marks the end of the tile to read from Bash.

    \] end a sequence of non-printing characters

    • 2

  3. I use xttitle (in the xttitle package): 

    update_title()
{
    [[ $TERM = xterm ]] || [[ $TERM = xterm-color ]]  && xttitle "[$$] ${USER}@${HOSTNAME}:$PWD"
}

cd()
{
    [[ -z "$*" ]] && builtin cd $HOME
    [[ -n "$*" ]] && builtin cd "$*"
    update_title
}
    • 1