MULTI-GNOME-TERMINAL(1)

NAME
multi-gnome-terminal - An enhanced terminal emulator for GNOME.

SYNOPSIS

multi-gnome-terminal [--disable-sound] [--enable-sound] [--espeaker=HOSTNAME:PORT] [--version] [--usage|-?|--help] [--gdk-debug=FLAGS] [--gdk-no-debug=FLAGS] [--display=DISPLAY] [--sync] [--no-xshm] [--name=NAME] [--class=WM_CLASS] [--gxid_host=HOST] [--gxid_port=PORT] [--xim-preedit=STYLE] [--xim-status=STYLE] [--gtk-debug=FLAGS] [--gtk-no-debug=FLAGS] [--g-fatal-warnings] [--gtk-module=MODULE] [--disable-crash-dialog] [--sm-client-id=ID] [--sm-config-prefix=PREFIX] [--sm-disable] [--tclass=TCLASS_NAME] [--font=FONT] [--nologin] [--login] [--geometry=GEOMETRY] [-e COMMAND|-x COMMAND|--command COMMAND|--execute COMMAND] [--foreground=COLOR] [--background=COLOR] [--solid] [--pixmap=FILENAME] [--bgscroll] [--bgnoscroll] [--shaded] [--noshaded] [--transparent] [--utmp] [--noutmp] [--wtmp] [--nowtmp] [--lastlog] [--nolastlog] [-t TITLE|--title TITLE] [--icon=ICONNAME] [--termname NAME] [--start-factory-server] [--use-factory]

DESCRIPTION

multi-gnome-terminal is a terminal emulator program that is based on gnome-terminal, from the GNOME project. multi-gnome-terminal emulates the DEC VT terminals and provides access to the Unix shell environment.

multi-gnome-terminal supports color display, pseudo-transparency with shading and tinting, pixmap backgrounds, and offers various other enhancements over the original gnome-terminal program.

The most notable enhancement of multi-gnome-terminal over gnome-terminal is the ability to run multiple terminals simultaneously within the same window. Switching between active terminals is easily done with either the mouse or with keyboard shortcuts. Other significant enhancements include a toolbar, a buttonbar, user definable key bindings, font shadowing, and the ability to add user definable commands that can be accessed through the multi-gnome-terminal GUI.

EMULATION

multi-gnome-terminal is designed to emulate the "xterm" program provided by the X Consortium. The xterm(1) program in turn is an almost-complete emulation of the DEC VT102 terminal.

multi-gnome-terminal supports the same extensions to the VT102 that the xterm(1) program provides, through special escape sequences. The xterm(1) program is an evolving program. Recent changes to xterm(1) have been been incorporated into multi-gnome-terminal. This includes emulation of the newer DEC VT220 escape sequences.

OPTIONS

Some of the more commonly used command line options:

--tclass=TCLASS_NAME
    Tells multi-gnome-terminal to use the configuration values for the terminal class specified by TCLASS_NAME (for example, I use --tclass red for root terminals).

--class=WM_CLASS
    Specify a Window class name for X.

--version
    Show the current multi-gnome-terminal version information.

--font=FONT_NAME
    Specifies the font to be used to display text in the multi-gnome-terminal.

--nologin
    This option indicates that the shell started by multi-gnome-terminal should not be a login shell but a regular shell.

--login
    This option indicates that the shell started by multi-gnome-terminal should be a login shell (this trick is cleverly achieved in the Unix world by running the shell but telling the shell that its name has a dash in the front. Very clever).

--geometry=GEOMETRY
    Specifies the startup geometry for the terminal.

--command=COMMAND
    Executes the command COMMAND instead of the shell. This saves some memory if you are just planning on running a dedicated application on that window. For example, you could run the minicom terminal emulator on the window like this:
     gnome-terminal --command minicom
    or for example, if you want to monitor your system:
     gnome-terminal --command top

--execute COMMAND, -x COMMAND
    This flag is here for compatibility reasons. It is the same as --command.

--foreground=COLOR
    Specifies the color to be used for the foreground of the terminal (fonts and cursor).

--background=COLOR
    Specifies the color to be used for the background of the terminal.

--utmp
    Updates the Unix Login entry (The UTMP file, this is the default), this registers the multi-gnome-terminal instance with the list of users that are logged into the system (so you will be visible with the `who' command).

--noutmp
    Requests multi-gnome-terminal to not update the login records. This means that the user will not show up in the output of the `who' Unix command.

--wtmp
    Requests that this session will be logged into the system records for users that have logged into the system. This is different from `utmp' because this keeps track of who logged in and logged out of the system, independently of whether it shows up in the list of users.

--nowtmp
    Requests that the session be not logged into the system records.

--title=TITLE, -t TITLE
    Sets the title for the multi-gnome-terminal to be TITLE.

--termname NAME
    Specifies the terminal name that should be put in the environment variable $TERM. It is not normally necessary to use this flag, but you may want to use it for some bizarre situations.

--start-factory-server
    Tells multi-gnome-terminal that it should start the factory server. This will provide a terminal server that later other multi-gnome-terminals can contact (this saves memory, as a single process is run, and multiple multi-gnome-terminal windows can be managed by the same process).

--use-factory
    This tells multi-gnome-terminal that it should try to contact an existing GNOME Terminal factory to minimize memory use.

--pixmap=FILENAME
    Specifies the image filename to be used as the background for this terminal.

--bgscroll
    Specifies that the background image should scroll together with the text as the screen scrolls.

--bgnoscroll
    Specifies that the background image should not scroll when the text scrolls in the terminal window.

--shaded
    Requests that the background image be shaded (for used with --transparent and --pixmap).

--noshaded
    Requests that the background remain untouched (no shading be applied). --transparent Requests that the terminal should run in "pseudo-transparent" mode, making the background of the terminal be the background of your root window. --icon=FNAME Specifies the filename that contains the icon that would be used for your terminal (if your window manager supports icon hints).

See the GNOME and GDK documentation for the other options.

MULTIPLE TERMINALS

Each multi-gnome-terminal is like many terminals in one. Multiple terminal instances can run simultaneously within one window. Each runs its own, unique shell environment. New terminals are started by selecting "New Tab" from either the menubar, buttonbar, or toolbar. This will start a new shell, and create a new "Tab" that allows easy access between the various opened terminals.

In addition, individual Tabs are customizable and allow the user to choose label names and colors. The Tab label will show on both the Tab itself, and the Window title bar. Colors are used to notify the user of events in a non-focused terminal. By default, the Tab label will show red if there is activity in a non-focused terminal, and then change to blue to notify that this activity has completed. See "Colors" under the Preferences menu selection. Tabs can also be saved with their PATH information.

To create new terminals:
   - buttons on bottom of the window (buttonbar)
   - popup menu (right clicking on the terminal)
   - menubar
   - keyboard shortcuts (using letter "L"):
       CTRL-l r: Start a root shell (via su)
       CTRL-l n: Start a bash shell
       CTRL-l m: Start Midnight Commander in a new shell

To switch between running terminals:
   - keyboard shortcuts:
       SHIFT-Right: next terminal
       SHIFT-Left: previous terminal
       CTRL-<n>: switch to n-th terminal
   - buttons on the buttonbar
   - buttons on the toolbar
   - clicking on notebook Tabs (bookmarks)
   - using notebook popup menu (right click on tabs)

To change the title of a terminal (tab label and Window title text):
   - buttons on the bottom of the screen (buttonbar)
   - buttons in the toolbar
   - menubar (File)
   - keyboard shortcut: CTRL-F2

CLASSES

multi-gnome-terminal allows for different configuration profiles to suit different uses (e.g. different background colors, presence, absence or position of scrollbars, and so on). These are known as "classes". To set these up, invoke the Preferences dialog box from the Settings menu of multi-gnome-terminal. This can be reached either through the menubar, or the pop-up menu accessed by shift-right-clicking on the terminal window. Select the options you prefer (these changes will be made to your currently open terminal, so you can see what they look like). Before closing the Preferences pop-up, make sure you have put a new name in the space marked "Terminal Class".

To activate a specific class at program startup, use the --tclass=TCLASS command line option. Classes can also be selected through the Settings menu, or the Preferences pop-up.

GNOME Terminal Factories

It is possible to start a single instance of multi-gnome-terminal, and yet have multiple windows open at the same time. The easiest way of achieving this is by selecting "File" and then "New terminal" from the menu. But it is also possible to programatically instruct multi-gnome-terminal to re-use an existing running instance of multi-gnome-terminal.

By default the GNOME desktop ships with settings that allow terminals to share a single process, and thus reduce memory usage. This is achieved by registering GNOME with the CORBA gnome-name-service and using the --start-factory and the --use-factory options.

SHADING, TINTING AND BACKGROUND IMAGE

Like gnome-terminal, multi-gnome-terminal can display a pixmap background, or display in pseudo-transparency mode where the root window background is visible through the terminal window. But, multi-gnome-terminal adds the ability to shade and tint the window. This requires transparency to be on and is configured from the "Image" tab of the Preferences dialog.

COMMANDS

Commands to create and run in new terminal windows can also be defined. The included defaults are shell (user's default shell), root (root shell via su), and mc (Midnight Commander). The user can add his own startup shell commands, including setting the PATH through the "Edit Commands" selection from the Settings menu in the menubar. Each command should launch a shell, and will thus open a new tabbed terminal window in the process. The command should either invoke an interactive shell (e.g. bash), or run some command (e.g. a script) that includes a wait condition. Commands will appear on the appropriate menus and are easily launched with the mouse or keyboard shortcuts.

Commands to initiliaze new tabs automatically on start-up should be defined in the lower section of the "Edit Commands" dialog, and the "Don't Open Startup Tabs" should be unchecked for this feature. Use the "Get" button to copy a selected item from the upper section.

Commands may be "grouped" into sub-menus for better organization. Example: adding entries with names of "Projects/School" and "Projects/Sourceforge" would create a sub-menu entry labeled "Projects". The sub-menu would contain two command entries: "School" and "Sourceforge".

FONT SHADOWING

multi-gnome-terminal now supports font shadowing, which is a technique for outlining fonts with a thin shadow effect. This helps with contrast and readability on transparent or pixmapped backgrounds. This is enabled from the "Image" tab of the Preferences dialog.

KEY BINDINGS

Key bindings used by multi-gnome-terminal may be customized by selecting "Key Bindings" from the Settings menu in the menubar. Various tasks, such as opening a new terminal or switching between active terminals, may be assigned to keyboard combinations of the user's choosing.

NOTES

multi-gnome-terminal is designed to integrate fully with a GNOME session and environment. But it can be used even in the absence of a gnome-session as long as the required GNOME and GTK libs are installed.

AUTHORS

Cristiano De Michele is the author of multi-gnome-terminal. Michael Zucchi is the wizard behind the Zvt widget which implements the terminal used by multi-gnome-terminal. Miguel de Icaza and Erik Troan implemented the user interface elements for the original gnome-terminal program. Erik Bourget has also contributed to multi-gnome-terminal.

SEE ALSO

gnome-session(1), gnome-terminal(1), xterm(1)

BUGS

Please report bugs using the bug tracking system at http://multignometerm.sourceforge.net.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

multi-gnome-terminal is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details, which is available from the Free Software Foundation, Inc, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.