How to open terminal, split to 9 terminals and switch between them using one script?

Question

I would like to open a terminal, split it to lets say 9 parts (3x3) 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?

Answer 1

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:

   

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

   

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

   

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:

   

   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:

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.

Answer 2

Are you searching for terminal multiplexer tmux.

https://github.com/tmux/tmux

Answer 3

Back when I was using terminator this is the rc file that I used to open a bunch of terminals and run applications. Save it to .config/terminator/config.

[global_config]
  title_hide_sizetext = True
  enabled_plugins = LaunchpadCodeURLHandler, APTURLHandler, LaunchpadBugURLHandler
[keybindings]
[profiles]
  [[default]]
    font = DejaVu Sans Mono 9
    cursor_blink = False
    scrollback_infinite = True
[layouts]
  [[default]]

    [[[root]]]
      position = -4:0
      type = Window
      order = 0 
      parent = ""
      size = 1072, 1884

    [[[grand]]]
      position = 536 
      type = HPaned
      order = 0 
      parent = root
    [[[left]]]
      position = 942 
      type = VPaned
      order = 0 
      parent = grand
    [[[right]]]
      position = 942 
      type = VPaned
      order = 1 
      parent = grand



    [[[terminal1]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 0 
      parent = left
      command = "cd ~/code/foo; bash"
    [[[terminal2]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 1 
      parent = left
      command = "cd ~/bar/baz; bash"



    [[[terminal3]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 1 
      parent = right
      command = ""
    [[[terminal4]]]
      profile = default
      type = Terminal
      order = 0 
      parent = right
      command = "cmus; bash"



[plugins]

EDIT: Note that this information probably came from Terdon's post on a much earlier thread. I've been using this setup for a few months, but Terdon's post here looks very familiar!

Answer 4

Wrapper script for splitting Terminator terminal emulator https://github.com/AlekseyChudov/terminator-split