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I am using Ubuntu 20.04, and I'm one of those who enjoys Gnome. Even so, sometimes I like tiling my terminals for work. Usually I'll set them up like so:

enter image description here

I use the Terminator terminal to achieve that effect.

Now, it takes a lot of hotkeys to get to that setup. I have Terminator set as Super-T; then I need to split vertically (Ctrl-Shift-O), then split horizontally (Ctrl-Shift-O). Then I shift the terminals around with Ctrl-Down and Ctrl-Right. I'd like to create a single hotkey that can sequence all those combinations in a single press. I tried to write a script using xdotool:

#!/bin/bash
xdotool key super+j
xdotool key shift+F1
xdotool key super+Up
xdotool key ctrl+shift+o
xdotool key ctrl+shift+e
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Down
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Down
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Down
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Down
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Down
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Down
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Down
xdotool key alt+Down
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key ctrl+shift+Left
xdotool key alt+Right
xdotool ipython

This was going to be a quick and dirty start to get done what I need to get done, but all that it does is open a new workspace (Super-J) and a Terminator instance (Shift-F1). The other keypresses don't register in the Terminator window in order to effect the necessary window customizations.

Does anyone have a better recommendation of how to do this?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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+50

It doesn't actually create a hotkey sequence but maybe gets the desired result (?)

Do your settings the way you like and then right click on one of the terminals -> preferences -> layout tab

Click on default and then save.

So now you just have to open terminator again and you will have your layout immediately.

I didn't understand the "shifting terminals around" part though...

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3
  • While I did create a layout called IDE that allows me to, for example, run a dmenu line as terminator -l IDE (not that I'm a big expert in dmenu, or really even use it, for that matter--I don't want to give you the wrong idea about my expertise, or lack thereof), I don't always want to open Terminator with that layout. It also opens a second instance with the default layout for some reason. The "shifting terminals" is a feature of Terminator that allows for resizing of terminal windows within the single instance of Terminator.
    – Yehuda
    Oct 25, 2021 at 22:22
  • 2
    Hmmm, OK. I don't have any experience with dmenu... If you don't want it to be the default layout why don't you create a custom layout and then just make a hotkey to run terminator with that custom layout ? For shifting, I thought it was something like that, IDK why but it doesn't work on my system...
    – golder3
    Oct 25, 2021 at 22:30
  • After messing around with the layouts, I've concluded that saving the layout saves the positions of the terminal windows as well. The script now works perfectly, thanks.
    – Yehuda
    Oct 28, 2021 at 0:12
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You can write all the commands from the hotkeys on a shell script and refence the new hotkey to execute that script. Locate the script in /bin/ (with execute permissions) or adding the path of the script to the environment variable PATH so that the hotkey can detect it as a command.

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2
  • I figured, but I have no idea how to do that. I'll update my question with the script I wrote and the issues I had.
    – Yehuda
    Oct 24, 2021 at 20:21
  • Instead of using the commands "xdtool key...." write the actual command linked to that key combination.
    – esantix
    Oct 25, 2021 at 14:24

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