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Asked: 2014-04-25 15:58:07 +0800 CST

Is there a way to bring the terminal to the front when whatever I launched is done?

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So I'm wondering if It was possible to bring in front my terminal when what I ran is now done.

I'm not taking about a one time stuff like

run_long_task; bring_to_front_somehow;

but something that would do it automatically.

This would greatly improved my productivity :)

I'm using zshell(if that helps)

command-line

2 Answers

  1. You first need to install wmctrl which is a command line tool to interact with an EWMH/NetWM compatible X Window Manager:

    sudo apt-get install wmctrl

    In order to focus the right Terminal, you'll need to start it with a given title, like this:

    gnome-terminal -t tototiti

    Then you can bring it to the front with the following command:

    sleep 10; wmctrl -a tototiti

    Note: wmctrl -a STRING gives focus to a window containing STRING in its title

    Tested with both bash and zsh

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  2. Best Answer

    Ok I got it working.

    So I had to find a way to plug in to the prompt display.

    So basicly in my zsh theme I added a method to bring to the front the current window.

    function bring_to_front {
  xdotool windowactivate $WINDOWID
}

    $WINDOWID is actually set by gnome-terminal automatically.

    and the magic is just to call that method as part of the prompt. this way everytime the prompt is displayed, it will bring it to the front. And since the prompt is displayed when the previous command is finished...

    PROMPT='$(bring_to_front)${ret_status}%{$fg_bold[green]%}%p %{$fg[cyan]%}%c %{$fg_bold[blue]%}$(git_prompt_info)%{$fg_bold[blue]%} % %{$reset_color%}'

    The next thing I'm trying to achieve is to select the right tab. I will update the answer if I get that working.

    EDIT

    Bonus Switch to the right tab

    Disclaimer : This is hacky as hell so bear with me.

    this works only for gnome terminal.

    function alert_done {
  xdotool windowactivate $WINDOWID
  child_count=`pgrep --parent $PPID -c`
  # we need to remove the first child as it's gnome-tty-helper and not a tab
  terminal_count=`expr $child_count - 1`
  terminal_pids=`pgrep --parent $PPID | tail -n $terminal_count | tr '\n' ' '`
  eval "pid_array=($terminal_pids)"
  xdotool key alt+${(k)pid_array[(r)$$]}
}
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