Introduction

A command line tool that changes the style of your current tab in Terminal.app on Mac OS X. This tools is largely inspired by an AppleScript from the Omni Group. That script was broken when Snow Leopard came out, however there is now an updated version of the script available from the Omni Group. Too bad that I found the update after I had written this helper myself. Though it was a nice learning example for using the ScriptingBridge Framework. I hope you can enjoy it too!

See the following blog post for further information on the original AppleScript: http://blog.omnigroup.com/2007/11/03/terminal-scripting-in-105/

I'd like to give a big thank you to the Omni Group for creating great apps for the Mac platform and for sharing their knowledge with the community. Thanks!

Environment and Usage Information

This tool is written in Objective-C and uses the ScriptingBridge Framework for interacting with the Terminal.app Application. It was tested on Mac OS X Snow Leopard and may be broken with other Terminal.app versions of previous system versions.

$ ./SetTerminalStyle -h
usage: SetTerminalStyle -s <style> [-t <title>] [-c]
       SetTerminalStyle -l
       SetTerminalStyle -c

The parameters available are:

1. -s The name of the style.
2. -t An alternative title for the tab.
3. -c Returns the current style for the tab.
4. -l Lists all style configured in Terminal.app and marks the default with a .

You may add the following functions to your .bashrc or alternative shell init script:

if [ "$TERM_PROGRAM" = "Apple_Terminal" ]; then
  function ssh {
    STYLE=`SetTerminalStyle -s ssh -t "$@" -c`
    /usr/bin/ssh "$@"
    SetTerminalStyle -s "${STYLE}" 
  }
  function vim {
      STYLE=`SetTerminalStyle -s vim -t "$@" -c`
      /usr/bin/vim "$@"
      SetTerminalStyle -s "${STYLE}"
  }
  function sudo {
      STYLE=`SetTerminalStyle -s sudo -t "$@" -c`
      /usr/bin/sudo "$@"
      SetTerminalStyle -s "${STYLE}" 
  }
fi

You now have to add the three styles "ssh", "vim" and "sudo" to your Terminal.app configuration and you're done. When you now call a remote session with ssh or when you open your vim editor, the style of your terminal tab changes to the named settings.

Build Instructions

Simply check out the subversion project and call make in the directory. You may install the tool using make install or simply do a cp to your preferred location.