From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what. This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu,
but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-18, bp@www.zefox.net <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what. This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu,
but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

You need to write the string ESC]0;Title^G to the terminal.

I have this in a little script called xtn which does this.

To generate ESC in bash use ^V^[ where '^' is holding down the control key. ^G is done like wise. You will have to wrap the strings in quotes

e.g. echo -n "^[]0;"$1"^G"

good luck. I've just done this in LXTerminal with bash as my shell.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what. This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu,
but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Does this set the window title:

$ export TITLE="hello world"
$ echo -en "\e]30;$TITLE\a"

bash should set the window title to the current command, using the same
escape sequence. If it doesn't:

a) you aren't using bash. Maybe it needs to be enabled in your shell?

b) bash is not configured to set the title, I'm not sure where you'd find
that

c) your terminal is not advertising itself as a suitable type that uses the escape code. What's your TERM variable set to?

d) your terminal is choosing not to display it, for some reason (perhaps
the configuration you mention above)

Theo

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:

On 2026-02-18, bp@www.zefox.net <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display >> the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu,
but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

You need to write the string ESC]0;Title^G to the terminal.

I have this in a little script called xtn which does this.

To generate ESC in bash use ^V^[ where '^' is holding down the control key. ^G is done like wise. You will have to wrap the strings in quotes

e.g. echo -n "^[]0;"$1"^G"

good luck. I've just done this in LXTerminal with bash as my shell.

It doesn't seem to do much of anything in my case. Here's a transcript: bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo $TERM
xterm-256color
bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo -n "^[]0;"$1"^G"
^[]0;^Gbob@raspberrypi:~$
bob@raspberrypi:~$

I was hoping to see the title change, but no luck. As you might
guess, my fluency with shells is abysmal. I use them only in a
very simple-minded way, usually to type single commands.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display >> the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu,
but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Does this set the window title:

$ export TITLE="hello world"
$ echo -en "\e]30;$TITLE\a"

No. Neither does it trigger an error message....

bash should set the window title to the current command, using the same escape sequence. If it doesn't:

a) you aren't using bash. Maybe it needs to be enabled in your shell?

According to /etc/passwd, bash is my login shell, running
bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo $TERM
xterm-256color

suggests that lxterm is a variant of xterm, which makes sense.

b) bash is not configured to set the title, I'm not sure where you'd find that

c) your terminal is not advertising itself as a suitable type that uses the escape code. What's your TERM variable set to?

As above, xterm-256color

d) your terminal is choosing not to display it, for some reason (perhaps
the configuration you mention above)

The configuration file at ~/.config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf contains
quite a few entries, but none appears to be related to titles. The man
page for lxterminal doesn't give any useful hints. The config file
appears to be name=value format, Shift-ctrl-I brings up the dialog
to manually enter a title which is interpreted as a simple string.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> wrote:

On 19/02/2026 03:47, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display
the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu, >>>> but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Does this set the window title:

$ export TITLE="hello world"
$ echo -en "\e]30;$TITLE\a"

No. Neither does it trigger an error message....

bash should set the window title to the current command, using the same
escape sequence. If it doesn't:

a) you aren't using bash. Maybe it needs to be enabled in your shell?

According to /etc/passwd, bash is my login shell, running
bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo $TERM
xterm-256color

suggests that lxterm is a variant of xterm, which makes sense.

b) bash is not configured to set the title, I'm not sure where you'd find >>> that

c) your terminal is not advertising itself as a suitable type that uses the >>> escape code. What's your TERM variable set to?

As above, xterm-256color

d) your terminal is choosing not to display it, for some reason (perhaps >>> the configuration you mention above)

The configuration file at ~/.config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf contains
quite a few entries, but none appears to be related to titles. The man
page for lxterminal doesn't give any useful hints. The config file
appears to be name=value format, Shift-ctrl-I brings up the dialog
to manually enter a title which is interpreted as a simple string.

Does

echo -en "\033]0;Hello World\007"

work?

No, it doesn't do anything visible:

bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo -en "\033]0;Hello World\007"
bob@raspberrypi:~$

so no output beyond the echoed input and no change in
the tab title. I rather wonder where the command output
went, since no error was reported.

If I'm missing something idiotic please point it out!

Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

In article <10n7fpe$3lun8$2@dont-email.me>, <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net> wrote:

In article <10n560g$2u42e$1@dont-email.me>, <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote: >>>From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.

This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

This is on "generic Linux" if it matters:

In ~/bin I have an executable script:

#!/bin/sh

if [ "x$*" = x ]; then
echo -n "\033];`hostname`\007"
else
echo -n "\033];$*\007"
fi

I call it 'xtt' (xterm title - works in xterm and other terminals I use)
You make it yours and call it what you like.

So xtt on it's own resets the title to your hostname (handy if you login
to many systems) othrwise it sets the title to whatever you put on the
command line

xtt silly editing session

for example

Your challenge is to make it work automatically for every command
you type.. (I don't need that functionality, I use it inside other
scripts that start stuff)

This suggestion might touch on a fundamental issue: Which host,
the ssh client or the ssh server, gets to set the window or tab
title on the client machine running RasPiOS? I've been thinking
it's the RasPiOS machine displaying the window or tab. If I'm
understanding you correctly it's the server end of the connection.
Is that correct?

It's whatever you want it to be. In my case it's the client - which to
avoid ambiguity is the system I type the ssh command on...

I'm working with only one RasPiOS workstation client and several
FreeBSD servers. I'd rather customize the workstation than the
servers, if that's possible.

Well... `hostname` returns the name of the host the script is running
on.

One way I use it is in scripts that ssh to remote systems, so rather
than type ssh frotz, I type 'frotz' which is a script in my ~/bin
directory and that script looks like:

#!/bin/sh
xtt '-> Frotz'
ssh gordon@frotz.drogon.net $*
xtt

This sets the title of the xterm I'm typing into to '-> Frotz' then
runs the ssh to the server...

When the ssh exits (ie. I logout of Frotz), the xtt command with no
arguments resets the terminal title bar to that on whatever host I typed
the command at. (either my desktop or laptop)

Gordon

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net> wrote:

In article <10n7fpe$3lun8$2@dont-email.me>, <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

This suggestion might touch on a fundamental issue: Which host,
the ssh client or the ssh server, gets to set the window or tab
title on the client machine running RasPiOS? I've been thinking
it's the RasPiOS machine displaying the window or tab. If I'm
understanding you correctly it's the server end of the connection.
Is that correct?

It's whatever you want it to be. In my case it's the client - which to
avoid ambiguity is the system I type the ssh command on...

To expand on that, all this \033]; stuff are 'terminal escape sequences'.
They cause the app which is displaying the data stream from your terminal to set the 'window title', whatever that means in its context (typically the
tab title in a tabbed terminal window), to the string embedded in the escape sequence.

Because they're just bytes, they can be passed over an SSH connection just
like any other bytes (letters, text colour-changes, cursor movements, etc). It's then up to the receiver (the terminal app) to interpret them.

The other piece of the puzzle is that your terminal needs to be configured
for the same 'terminal escape sequence' language. There are many kinds of terminals which speak different languages, described in /etc/termcap and related files.

You (Bob) have TERM set to 'xterm-256color' which means that it's expecting terminal messages in that language. It sounds the right one to interpret
them: xterm is an X11 app where the concept of 'window title' makes sense - older terminal types like 'vt100' probably don't understand them (VT100s just had a keyboard and CRT screen - no windowing system).


Anyhow, I installed lxterminal (on Ubuntu 25.10) and I found I had the same problem. However this:

echo -e "\033]0;Hello\007" && sleep 3

does set the terminal title for 3 seconds and then it reverts to the
standard. Which suggests it's the prompt that's setting it back.

$ echo $PS1
\[\e]0;\u@\h: \w\a\]${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$

and if I drop the first part:

export PS1="${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$"

I can now set the terminal title in peace:

echo -ne "\033]0;Moo\007"

Theo

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-19, bp@www.zefox.net <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:

On 2026-02-18, bp@www.zefox.net <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display
the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu, >>> but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

You need to write the string ESC]0;Title^G to the terminal.

I have this in a little script called xtn which does this.

To generate ESC in bash use ^V^[ where '^' is holding down the control key.
^G is done like wise. You will have to wrap the strings in quotes

e.g. echo -n "^[]0;"$1"^G"

good luck. I've just done this in LXTerminal with bash as my shell.

It doesn't seem to do much of anything in my case. Here's a transcript: bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo $TERM
xterm-256color
bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo -n "^[]0;"$1"^G"
^[]0;^Gbob@raspberrypi:~$
bob@raspberrypi:~$

Did you type '^' then '['? Instead you should type ctl-V Ctl-[
and the same for for the other control character.

It worked for me in lxterminal and the $TERM was identical to yours.

I was hoping to see the title change, but no luck. As you might
guess, my fluency with shells is abysmal. I use them only in a
very simple-minded way, usually to type single commands.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 19/02/2026 03:47, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display
the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu, >>> but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Does this set the window title:

$ export TITLE="hello world"
$ echo -en "\e]30;$TITLE\a"

No. Neither does it trigger an error message....

bash should set the window title to the current command, using the same
escape sequence. If it doesn't:

a) you aren't using bash. Maybe it needs to be enabled in your shell?

According to /etc/passwd, bash is my login shell, running
bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo $TERM
xterm-256color

suggests that lxterm is a variant of xterm, which makes sense.

b) bash is not configured to set the title, I'm not sure where you'd find
that

c) your terminal is not advertising itself as a suitable type that uses the >> escape code. What's your TERM variable set to?

As above, xterm-256color

d) your terminal is choosing not to display it, for some reason (perhaps
the configuration you mention above)

The configuration file at ~/.config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf contains
quite a few entries, but none appears to be related to titles. The man
page for lxterminal doesn't give any useful hints. The config file
appears to be name=value format, Shift-ctrl-I brings up the dialog
to manually enter a title which is interpreted as a simple string.

Does

echo -en "\033]0;Hello World\007"

work?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 19/02/2026 16:54, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> wrote:

Does

echo -en "\033]0;Hello World\007"

work?

No, it doesn't do anything visible:

bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo -en "\033]0;Hello World\007"
bob@raspberrypi:~$

so no output beyond the echoed input and no change in
the tab title. I rather wonder where the command output
went, since no error was reported.

If I'm missing something idiotic please point it out!

Does your PS1 keep overwritting the window title?
Does the window title change if you, say, change directory?



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-19, Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> wrote:

Does

echo -en "\033]0;Hello World\007"

work?

Bravo. The simplest solution - all "normal" characters.



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

In article <10n560g$2u42e$1@dont-email.me>, <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what. >This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

This is on "generic Linux" if it matters:

In ~/bin I have an executable script:

#!/bin/sh

if [ "x$*" = x ]; then
echo -n "\033];`hostname`\007"
else
echo -n "\033];$*\007"
fi

I call it 'xtt' (xterm title - works in xterm and other terminals I use)
You make it yours and call it what you like.

So xtt on it's own resets the title to your hostname (handy if you login
to many systems) othrwise it sets the title to whatever you put on the
command line

xtt silly editing session

for example

Your challenge is to make it work automatically for every command
you type.. (I don't need that functionality, I use it inside other
scripts that start stuff)

Gordon

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net> wrote:

In article <10n560g$2u42e$1@dont-email.me>, <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what. >>This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

This is on "generic Linux" if it matters:

In ~/bin I have an executable script:

#!/bin/sh

if [ "x$*" = x ]; then
echo -n "\033];`hostname`\007"
else
echo -n "\033];$*\007"
fi

I call it 'xtt' (xterm title - works in xterm and other terminals I use)
You make it yours and call it what you like.

So xtt on it's own resets the title to your hostname (handy if you login
to many systems) othrwise it sets the title to whatever you put on the command line

xtt silly editing session

for example

Your challenge is to make it work automatically for every command
you type.. (I don't need that functionality, I use it inside other
scripts that start stuff)

This suggestion might touch on a fundamental issue: Which host,
the ssh client or the ssh server, gets to set the window or tab
title on the client machine running RasPiOS? I've been thinking
it's the RasPiOS machine displaying the window or tab. If I'm
understanding you correctly it's the server end of the connection.
Is that correct?

I'm working with only one RasPiOS workstation client and several
FreeBSD servers. I'd rather customize the workstation than the
servers, if that's possible.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

Gordon

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-18 at 20:43 AST, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display >> the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu,
but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Does this set the window title:

$ export TITLE="hello world"
$ echo -en "\e]30;$TITLE\a"

I realize that the conversation has moved on, but for anyone coming in late...

There is a '3' in the above line which should not be there.

Try
$ echo -en "\e]0;$TITLE\a"

Jim

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-18 at 23:22 AST, bp@www.zefox.net <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:

On 2026-02-18, bp@www.zefox.net <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display
the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu, >>> but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

You need to write the string ESC]0;Title^G to the terminal.

I have this in a little script called xtn which does this.

To generate ESC in bash use ^V^[ where '^' is holding down the control key.
^G is done like wise. You will have to wrap the strings in quotes

e.g. echo -n "^[]0;"$1"^G"

good luck. I've just done this in LXTerminal with bash as my shell.

It doesn't seem to do much of anything in my case. Here's a transcript: bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo $TERM
xterm-256color
bob@raspberrypi:~$ echo -n "^[]0;"$1"^G"
^[]0;^Gbob@raspberrypi:~$
bob@raspberrypi:~$

I was hoping to see the title change, but no luck. As you might
guess, my fluency with shells is abysmal. I use them only in a
very simple-minded way, usually to type single commands.

Bob,

bp mentioned that he was using a script, and in his script $1 would be the first argument to the script.

You were just typing that from the command line, where $1 is not what you want.

As has been pointed out (and "bravo"ed), there are less error-prone ways to
get the escape char out of the echo command, but assuming you know that to get
^[
you want to type
Ctrl-V Escape
and that to get
^G
you want to type
Ctrl-V Ctrl-G
then putting something useful in for $1 above might help:

echo -n "^[]0;Hello There^G"

Finally, if something in your default setup is resetting the tab/terminal
title to something else every time before the prompt is printed, try

echo -n "^[]0;Hello There^G" ; sleep 10

and see if you see "Hello There" for 10 seconds (+/-) after you hit Enter.

Cheers.
Jim

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Jim Diamond <zsd@jdvb.ca> wrote:

On 2026-02-18 at 20:43 AST, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display
the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu, >> but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Does this set the window title:

$ export TITLE="hello world"
$ echo -en "\e]30;$TITLE\a"

I realize that the conversation has moved on, but for anyone coming in late...

There is a '3' in the above line which should not be there.

Try
$ echo -en "\e]0;$TITLE\a"

They both work for me (in Konsole). According to:
$ zless /usr/share/doc/xterm/ctlseqs.txt.gz

Code | Sun | CDE | XTerm | Description
OSC 0 ST | - | yes | yes | set window and icon title
OSC 1 ST | - | yes | yes | set icon label
OSC 2 ST | - | yes | yes | set window title
OSC 3 ST | - | n/a | yes | set X server property


where OSC ('operating system command') is 'ESC ]' in 7-bit mode (0x9b in
8-bit mode) and ST ('sequence terminator') is 'ESC \' or 0x9c. So it looks like the first 3 is overridden by the second 0 as there's no OSC 3 0 ST
command listed.

Theo

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> wrote:

On 19/02/2026 03:47, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:


Does

echo -en "\033]0;Hello World\007"

work?

No, it doesn't do anything visible:

Looks like I was mistaken. A simple copy and paste
of the lineabove changes the tab title to Hello World.

I'm not sure what's different now, it's the same Pi,
just a newly-created tab.

I'm also not sure I got the quotes right, apologies if things
are now mis-attributed.

It seems the remaining puzzle is how to replace the string
Hello World with the name of the last-typed command...

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 22/02/2026 00:21, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

It seems the remaining puzzle is how to replace the string
Hello World with the name of the last-typed command...

I think this works ...

ESC=$(echo -en "\033")
BEL=$(echo -en "\007")

export HISTFILE=~./bash_history$(tty | sed "s,/,_,g")

export PS1='${ESC}]0;\
$(fc -ln -1 |\
tail -1 |\
sed "s/^[[:space:]]*//g")${BEL}\
${LOGNAME}@${HOSTNAME}:${PWD/$HOME/\~} $ '







--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> wrote:

On 22/02/2026 00:21, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

It seems the remaining puzzle is how to replace the string
Hello World with the name of the last-typed command...

I think this works ...

ESC=$(echo -en "\033")
BEL=$(echo -en "\007")

export HISTFILE=~./bash_history$(tty | sed "s,/,_,g")

export PS1='${ESC}]0;\
$(fc -ln -1 |\
tail -1 |\
sed "s/^[[:space:]]*//g")${BEL}\
${LOGNAME}@${HOSTNAME}:${PWD/$HOME/\~} $ '

I really owe everybody an apology here. I thought there'd
be some trivial way to auto-title lxterminal windows so
they could be easily distinguished. Clearly there isn't
such a thing. The "name tab" option takes only a few seconds
and is probably the most efficient way to keep folks like me
from typing the wrong commands in the wrong window....

Thanks for everybody's help and patience!


bob prohaska


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:42:05 +0000, druck wrote:

On 25/02/2026 19:45, Jim Jackson wrote:

??? Why a differnet desktop. Just a different terminal emulator -
or are modern Term.

Depends whether you want your desktop to be consistent, or have half
a dozen different types of menus and window furniture on the apps
that you use.

Especially if you do this on the day your interior decorator comes to
visit ...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-23, druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 23/02/2026 18:18, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

I really owe everybody an apology here. I thought there'd
be some trivial way to auto-title lxterminal windows so
they could be easily distinguished. Clearly there isn't
such a thing. The "name tab" option takes only a few seconds
and is probably the most efficient way to keep folks like me
from typing the wrong commands in the wrong window....

The problem is lxterminal is not as fully featured as the alternatives
most people were probably using when they suggested the command
sequences which work for them.

You might want to consider an alternative desktop with a different
terminal program, MATE is almost as light weight as Pixel and runs very nicely on Pi4s and Pi5s.

??? Why a differnet desktop. Just a different terminal emulator - or are modern Term. Emu's stupidly tied inextricably to a fixed set of other
software that makes up a "desktop" whatever that is. I fired up
lxterminal even though I'm not running lxde - it worked just fine. I've
tried several others, all in my home made "desktop environment", they
all worked.

A term. emu. is just a program for creating a window for running command
line programs in.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-20 at 16:49 AST, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Jim Diamond <zsd@jdvb.ca> wrote:

On 2026-02-18 at 20:43 AST, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote: >>> bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

From time to time I get badly confused about which terminal window does what.
This is on a Pi5 running bookworm, if it matters.

One thing that would help is causing each lxterminl window or tab to display
the name of the command being run. In most cases that would be an ssh command
and hostname.

Obviously, this can be done manually by using the Tabs > Name Tab menuu, >>>> but it seems likely there'd be a setting in .config/lxterminal/lxterminal.conf
which I'm unable to intuit.

Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what syntax is required?

Does this set the window title:

$ export TITLE="hello world"
$ echo -en "\e]30;$TITLE\a"

I realize that the conversation has moved on, but for anyone coming in late...

There is a '3' in the above line which should not be there.

Try
$ echo -en "\e]0;$TITLE\a"

They both work for me (in Konsole). According to:
$ zless /usr/share/doc/xterm/ctlseqs.txt.gz

Code | Sun | CDE | XTerm | Description
OSC 0 ST | - | yes | yes | set window and icon title
OSC 1 ST | - | yes | yes | set icon label
OSC 2 ST | - | yes | yes | set window title
OSC 3 ST | - | n/a | yes | set X server property

where OSC ('operating system command') is 'ESC ]' in 7-bit mode (0x9b in 8-bit mode) and ST ('sequence terminator') is 'ESC \' or 0x9c. So it looks like the first 3 is overridden by the second 0 as there's no OSC 3 0 ST command listed.

Theo,

Huh. They don't work for me in urxvt.

Of course, the question was about lxterminal. So maybe it didn't work for
the OP because of the '3', and maybe for some other reason.

Jim

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-25, Lawrence D?Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:42:05 +0000, druck wrote:

On 25/02/2026 19:45, Jim Jackson wrote:

??? Why a differnet desktop. Just a different terminal emulator -
or are modern Term.

Depends whether you want your desktop to be consistent, or have half
a dozen different types of menus and window furniture on the apps
that you use.

Especially if you do this on the day your interior decorator comes to
visit ...

My interior decorator lives in the same house :-)

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-25, druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 25/02/2026 19:45, Jim Jackson wrote:

On 2026-02-23, druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 23/02/2026 18:18, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
You might want to consider an alternative desktop with a different
terminal program, MATE is almost as light weight as Pixel and runs very
nicely on Pi4s and Pi5s.

??? Why a differnet desktop. Just a different terminal emulator - or are
modern Term.

Depends whether you want your desktop to be consistent, or have half a
dozen different types of menus and window furniture on the apps that you use.

I thought your window manager dealt with window furniture.

So which desktop environments are Firefox, GIMP, libreoffice etc etc
meant to work with then? On my debian derived system, no matter what
desktop system I'm running there's only one of each to install?

Sorry that argument does not run. But you can try and prove me wrong.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-27 at 12:24 AST, Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:

On 2026-02-26, Jim Diamond <zsd@jdvb.ca> wrote:

Huh. They don't work for me in urxvt.

Of course, the question was about lxterminal. So maybe it didn't work for >> the OP because of the '3', and maybe for some other reason.

just installed rxvt-unicode, fired it up and ran my usual terminal name script which uses these codes and it works! Dunno what makes you setup
not work.

Me neither. I just tried it again, in case I had done something wrong.

Perhaps your urxvt was compiled with different options than mine, and one
such option allows more

On my Slackware system:
options: perl,xft,styles,combining,blink,iso14755,unicode3,encodings=eu+vn+jp+jp-ext+kr+zh+zh-ext,fade,pixbuf,XIM,frills,selectionscrolling,wheel,slipwheel,smart-resize,cursorBlink,pointerBlank,scrollbars=plain+NeXT

On one of my Pis:
options: perl,xft,styles,combining,blink,iso14755,unicode3,encodings=eu+vn+jp+jp-ext+kr+zh+zh-ext,fade,transparent,tint,pixbuf,XIM,frills,selectionscrolling,wheel,slipwheel,smart-resize,cursorBlink,pointerBlank,scrollbars=plain+rxvt+NeXT+xterm

The mystery continues...
Jim

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-26, Jim Diamond <zsd@jdvb.ca> wrote:

Huh. They don't work for me in urxvt.

Of course, the question was about lxterminal. So maybe it didn't work for the OP because of the '3', and maybe for some other reason.

just installed rxvt-unicode, fired it up and ran my usual terminal name
script which uses these codes and it works! Dunno what makes you setup
not work.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, 28 Feb 2026 11:28:16 -0000 (UTC), Jim Jackson wrote:

I'm on Devuan, so urxvt is the Debian one.

You can?t be sure of that. Who knows what the Devuan folks will rip
out in their attempts to root out the dreaded systemd-contamination
...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-02-27, Jim Diamond <zsd@jdvb.ca> wrote:

On 2026-02-27 at 12:24 AST, Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:

On 2026-02-26, Jim Diamond <zsd@jdvb.ca> wrote:

Huh. They don't work for me in urxvt.

Of course, the question was about lxterminal. So maybe it didn't work for >>> the OP because of the '3', and maybe for some other reason.

just installed rxvt-unicode, fired it up and ran my usual terminal name
script which uses these codes and it works! Dunno what makes you setup
not work.

Me neither. I just tried it again, in case I had done something wrong.

Perhaps your urxvt was compiled with different options than mine, and one such option allows more

I'm on Devuan, so urxvt is the Debian one. The options are the same as
the Pi version.

On my Slackware system: options:
perl,xft,styles,combining,blink,iso14755,unicode3,
encodings=eu+vn+jp+jp-ext+kr+zh+zh-ext,fade,pixbuf,
XIM,frills,selectionscrolling,wheel,slipwheel,smart-resize,
cursorBlink,pointerBlank,
scrollbars=plain+NeXT

On one of my Pis: options:
perl,xft,styles,combining,blink,iso14755,unicode3,
encodings=eu+vn+jp+jp-ext+kr+zh+zh-ext,fade,pixbuf

transparent,tint,

XIM,frills,selectionscrolling,wheel,slipwheel,smart-resize,
cursorBlink,pointerBlank,

scrollbars=plain+rxvt+NeXT+xterm

What window manager do you use? I'm using openbox. Make sure your shell
prompt isn't overwriting any change as explained earlier in this thread.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.12
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)