Re: Setting window title in ssh'ed host

[Gokdeniz Karadag]

Hi,

First of all thanks for your answer. I have solved the question -- or the 
question suddenly disappeared :)

My replies are between quotations below.

Trent W. Buck demis ki::
.......
> Note that the "type" builtin isn't portable, if you use .bash_profile
> you can instead just use
>
>     case "$TERM" in
>         screen*) printf %bk%s%b%b \\033 "${HOSTNAME%%.*}" \\033 \\0134;;
>     esac
....
> > Sometimes I logout of the connected machine and connect to another.
> > I don't want to set title each time I do this.  If there is no
> > screen in the way, the following bash variable shows the hostname in
> > xterm title.  PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${HOSTNAME}\007"'
>
> Oh, have a screen window with a shell, and you run "ssh fooserv" in
> the shell.  I *think* my approach still works in that case.

Yes, your approach is the proper solution to my problem, but another problem 
with "vim" made me use xterm as screen's $TERM during my previous attempts.

> > If I use this, and change %t->%h in hardstatus string, the hostname
> > shows in the "currently selected window only", but not the
> > others. As there is no equivalent of "-w" "+w" for xterm title(which
> > is an actual "hard" status), this path was blocked.
>
> I didn't understand any of that paragraph.

This is not much important but, my screen's hardstatus was like this;
hardstatus lastline "%-Lw%{= BW}%50>%n%f* %t%{-}%+Lw%<"
Example:  0$* machineA  1-$ machineB  2$ machineC

I was able to set the "xterm title" using "xterm hardstatus" escapes "in the 
connected machine", while using TERM=xterm.
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;address@hidden"'

I could display this "xterm hardstatus text"  in "screen hardstatus", by using 
"%h" in screen's hardstatus line. But, as you can see in my example ALL 
connected machine names can be seen, thanks to %-w and %+w in screen's 
hardstatus string. When "xterm hardstatus" is displayed using %h, there is no 
%-h and %+h to display all machines "xterm hardstatus" info on the last line.

If I couldn't made myself clear, feel free to ignore this as the problem is 
solved now.


> > To ensure that only ssh sessions within a GNU screen get the "title
> > setter prompt command", environment variables are useful, I can use
> > the TERM variable, but in stable debian, the default TERM=screen
> > breaks vim editor, it goes crazy when you press home, or pageup
> > buttons.  Using TERM=xterm fixes this, so I cannot check for TERM
> > being equal to "screen".
>
> Then you should fix vim, not train Screen to work with the wrong
> settings.  Does vim work correctly (with TERM screen) if you tell it
> not to evaluate your .vimrc and such?  If so, then the problem is with
> your .vimrc, not with vim itself.

My previus tests showed that setting TERM from "screen" to "xterm" solved 
problems with vim. Today, I intended to fix this issue once and for all, 
strangely, vim worked without problems using TERM=screen. As a result I can 
check TERM in servers and use screen specific escapes to set title.

> > A solution that I imagined was to extend the "stuff" line; it does the ssh
> > connection, then puts the PROMPT_COMMAND to set GNU screen window title.
> > escaping this correctly was a chore, but I managed after some experimentation.
> > stuff "ssh hostname\015export PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -n -e 
> > "\\033k\${HOSTNAME}\\033\\\\\"'\015"
>
> Instead of using :stuff, why not just set the title when you create
> the screen window, running ssh instead of the default shell?
>
> C-a :screen -t fooserv ssh fooserv

With stuff in screenrc, I can logout from the initially connected machine and 
that screen window does not close itself, just a convenience. Also, stuff can 
be extended to "cd" into relevant directory, run a non-login shell, etc.

Thanks again for the answer.

--
Gokdeniz Karadag