Setting a dynamic urxvt window title

Question

Hi,
I'm using urxvt windows for alot of apps and I don't like to have 6 windows in the taskbar that all say "urxvt [Number]").
That's why I would like to have either the name of the last app started in urxvt or at least a tail output of what's currently in there.
I understood that with
printf '\33]2;%s\007' "foo"
I can set the window title to foo but that was it.
Does anyone know if/how I can put something dynamic to the console title bar?
Doesn't have to be urxvt, but would be cool.
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by Zoranthus (2007-02-04 14:34:39)

Answer 1

Following skymt suggestion, I found this script which should make the preexec() and precmd() work in bash too, but I'm too newbie to figure out how the whole works
#!/bin/bash
# preexec.bash -- Bash support for ZSH-like 'preexec' and 'precmd' functions.
# The 'preexec' function is executed before each interactive command is
# executed, with the interactive command as its argument. The 'precmd'
# function is executed before each prompt is displayed.
# To use, in order:
# 1. source this file
# 2. define 'preexec' and/or 'precmd' functions (AFTER sourcing this file),
# 3. as near as possible to the end of your shell setup, run 'preexec_install'
# to kick everything off.
# Note: this module requires 2 bash features which you must not otherwise be
# using: the "DEBUG" trap, and the "PROMPT_COMMAND" variable. preexec_install
# will override these and if you override one or the other this _will_ break.
# This is known to support bash3, as well as *mostly* support bash2.05b. It
# has been tested with the default shells on MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger", Ubuntu 5.10
# "Breezy Badger", Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake", and Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Eft".
# This variable describes whether we are currently in "interactive mode";
# i.e. whether this shell has just executed a prompt and is waiting for user
# input. It documents whether the current command invoked by the trace hook is
# run interactively by the user; it's set immediately after the prompt hook,
# and unset as soon as the trace hook is run.
preexec_interactive_mode=""
# Default do-nothing implementation of preexec.
function preexec () {
true
# Default do-nothing implementation of precmd.
function precmd () {
true
# This function is installed as the PROMPT_COMMAND; it is invoked before each
# interactive prompt display. It sets a variable to indicate that the prompt
# was just displayed, to allow the DEBUG trap, below, to know that the next
# command is likely interactive.
function preexec_invoke_cmd () {
precmd
preexec_interactive_mode="yes"
# This function is installed as the DEBUG trap. It is invoked before each
# interactive prompt display. Its purpose is to inspect the current
# environment to attempt to detect if the current command is being invoked
# interactively, and invoke 'preexec' if so.
function preexec_invoke_exec () {
if [[ -n "$COMP_LINE" ]]
then
# We're in the middle of a completer. This obviously can't be
# an interactively issued command.
return
fi
if [[ -z "$preexec_interactive_mode" ]]
then
# We're doing something related to displaying the prompt. Let the
# prompt set the title instead of me.
return
else
# If we're in a subshell, then the prompt won't be re-displayed to put
# us back into interactive mode, so let's not set the variable back.
# In other words, if you have a subshell like
# (sleep 1; sleep 2)
# You want to see the 'sleep 2' as a set_command_title as well.
if [[ 0 -eq "$BASH_SUBSHELL" ]]
then
preexec_interactive_mode=""
fi
fi
if [[ "preexec_invoke_cmd" == "$BASH_COMMAND" ]]
then
# Sadly, there's no cleaner way to detect two prompts being displayed
# one after another. This makes it important that PROMPT_COMMAND
# remain set _exactly_ as below in preexec_install. Let's switch back
# out of interactive mode and not trace any of the commands run in
# precmd.
# Given their buggy interaction between BASH_COMMAND and debug traps,
# versions of bash prior to 3.1 can't detect this at all.
preexec_interactive_mode=""
return
fi
# In more recent versions of bash, this could be set via the "BASH_COMMAND"
# variable, but using history here is better in some ways: for example, "ps
# auxf | less" will show up with both sides of the pipe if we use history,
# but only as "ps auxf" if not.
local this_command=`history 1 | sed -e "s/^[ ]*[0-9]*[ ]*//g"`;
# If none of the previous checks have earlied out of this function, then
# the command is in fact interactive and we should invoke the user's
# preexec hook with the running command as an argument.
preexec "$this_command"
# Execute this to set up preexec and precmd execution.
function preexec_install () {
# *BOTH* of these options need to be set for the DEBUG trap to be invoked
# in ( ) subshells. This smells like a bug in bash to me. The null stderr
# redirections are to quiet errors on bash2.05 (i.e. OSX's default shell)
# where the options can't be set, and it's impossible to inherit the trap
# into subshells.
set -o functrace > /dev/null 2>&1
shopt -s extdebug > /dev/null 2>&1
# Finally, install the actual traps.
PROMPT_COMMAND=preexec_invoke_cmd
trap 'preexec_invoke_exec' DEBUG