1MULTIXTERM(1) General Commands Manual MULTIXTERM(1)
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6 multixterm - drive multiple xterms separately or together
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9 multixterm [ args ]
10
12 Multixterm creates multiple xterms that can be driven together or sepa‐
13 rately.
14 In its simplest form, multixterm is run with no arguments and commands
16 are interactively entered in the first entry field. Press return (or
17 click the "new xterm" button) to create a new xterm running that com‐
18 mand.
19 Keystrokes in the "stdin window" are redirected to all xterms started
21 by multixterm. xterms may be driven separately simply by focusing on
22 them.
23 The stdin window must have the focus for keystrokes to be sent to the
25 xterms. When it has the focus, the color changes to aquamarine. As
26 characters are entered, the color changes to green for a second. This
27 provides feedback since characters are not echoed in the stdin window.
28 Typing in the stdin window while holding down the alt or meta keys
30 sends an escape character before the typed characters. This provides
31 support for programs such as emacs.
32
35 -xa The optional -xa argument indicates arguments to pass to
36 xterm.
37 -xc The optional -xc argument indicates a command to be run in
40 each named xterm (see -xn). With no -xc argument, the com‐
41 mand is the current shell.
42 -xd The optional -xd argument indicates a directory to search
45 for files that will appear in the Files menu. By default,
46 the directory is: ~/lib/multixterm
47 -xf The optional -xf argument indicates a file to be read at
50 startup. See FILES below for more info.
51 -xn The optional -xn argument indicates a name for each xterm.
54 This name will also be substituted for any %n in the command
55 argument (see -xc).
56 -xv The optional -xv flag puts multixterm into a verbose mode
59 where it will describe some of the things it is doing inter‐
60 nally. The verbose output is not intended to be understand‐
61 able to anyone but the author.
62 Less common options may be changed by the startup file (see FILES
64 below).
65 All the usual X and wish flags are supported (i.e., -display, -name).
67 There are so many of them that to avoid colliding and make them easy to
68 remember, all the multixterm flags begin with -x.
69 If any arguments do not match the flags above, the remainder of the
71 command line is made available for user processing. By default, the
72 remainder is used as a list of xterm names in the style of -xn. The
73 default behavior may be changed using the .multixtermrc file (see DOT
74 FILE below).
75
78 The following command line starts up two xterms using ssh to the hosts
79 bud and dexter.
80 multixterm -xc "ssh %n" bud dexter
82
85 Command files may be used to drive or initialize multixterm. The File
86 menu may be used to invoke other files. If files exist in the command
87 file directory (see -xd above), they will appear in the File menu.
88 Files may also be loaded by using File->Open. Any filename is accept‐
89 able but the File->Open browser defaults to files with a .mxt suffix.
90 Files are written in Tcl and may change any variables or invoke any
92 procedures. The primary variables of interest are 'xtermCmd' which
93 identifies the command (see -xc) and 'xtermNames' which is a list of
94 names (see -xn). The procedure xtermStartAll, starts xterms for each
95 name in the list. Other variables and procedures may be discovered by
96 examining multixterm itself.
97
100 The following file does the same thing as the earlier example command
101 line:
102 # start two xterms connected to bud and dexter
104 set xtermCmd "ssh %n"
105 set xtermNames {bud dexter}
106 xtermStartAll
107
110 At startup, multixterm reads ~/.multixtermrc if present. This is simi‐
111 lar to the command files (see FILES above) except that .multixtermrc
112 may not call xtermStartAll. Instead it is called implicitly, similar
113 to the way that it is implicit in the command line use of -xn.
114 The following example .multixtermrc file makes every xterm run ssh to
116 the hosts named on the command line.
117 set xtermCmd "ssh %n"
119 Then multixterm could be called simply:
121 multixterm bud dexter
123 If any command-line argument does not match a multixterm flag, the
125 remainder of the command line is made available to .multixtermrc in the
126 argv variable. If argv is non-empty when .multixtermrc returns, it is
127 assigned to xtermNames unless xtermNames is non-empty in which case,
128 the content of argv is ignored.
129 Commands from multixterm are evaluated early in the initialization of
131 multixterm. Anything that must be done late in the initialization
132 (such as adding additional bindings to the user interface) may be done
133 by putting the commands inside a procedure called "initLate".
134
137 Except as otherwise noted, the menus are self-explanatory. Some of the
138 menus have dashed lines as the first entry. Clicking on the dashed
139 lines will "tear off" the menus.
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143 Aliases may be used to store lengthy command-line invocations. Command
144 files can be also be used to store such invocations as well as provid‐
145 ing a convenient way to share configurations.
146 Tcl is a general-purpose language. Thus multixterm command files can
148 be extremely flexible, such as loading hostnames from other programs or
149 files that may change from day-to-day. In addition, command files can
150 be used for other purposes. For example, command files may be used to
151 prepared common canned interaction sequences. For example, the command
152 to send the same string to all xterms is:
153 xtermSend "a particularly long string"
155 The File menu (torn-off) makes canned sequences particularly conve‐
157 nient. Interactions could also be bound to a mouse button, keystroke,
158 or added to a menu via the .multixtermrc file.
159 The following .multixtermrc causes tiny xterms to tile across and down
161 the screen. (You may have to adjust the parameters for your screen.)
162 This can be very helpful when dealing with large numbers of xterms.
163 set yPos 0
165 set xPos 0
166 trace variable xtermArgs r traceArgs
168 proc traceArgs {args} {
170 global xPos yPos
171 set ::xtermArgs "-geometry 80x12+$xPos+$yPos -font 6x10"
172 if {$xPos} {
173 set xPos 0
174 incr yPos 145
175 if {$yPos > 800} {set yPos 0}
176 } else {
177 set xPos 500
178 }
179 }
180 The xtermArgs variable in the code above is the variable corresponding
182 to the -xa argument.
183 xterms can be also be created directly. The following command file
185 creates three xterms overlapped horizontally:
186 set xPos 0
188 foreach name {bud dexter hotdog} {
189 set ::xtermArgs "-geometry 80x12+$xPos+0 -font 6x10"
190 set ::xtermNames $name
191 xtermStartAll
192 incr xPos 300
193 }
194
197 The following .multixtermrc shows an example of changing the default
198 handling of the arguments from hostnames to a filename containing host‐
199 names:
200 set xtermNames [exec cat $argv]
202 The following is a variation, retrieving the host names from the yp
204 database:
205 set xtermNames [exec ypcat $argv]
207 The following hardcodes two sets of hosts, so that you can call multix‐
209 term with either "cluster1" or "cluster2":
210 switch $argv {
212 cluster1 {
213 set xtermNames "bud dexter"
214 }
215 cluster2 {
216 set xtermNames "frank hotdog weiner"
217 }
218 }
219
224 It is worth comparing multixterm to xkibitz. Multixterm connects a
225 separate process to each xterm. xkibitz connects the same process to
226 each xterm.
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230 Multixterm provides no way to remotely control scrollbars, resize, and
231 most other window system related functions.
232 Because xterm has no mechanism for propagating size information to
234 external processes, particularly for character graphic applications
235 (e.g., vi, emacs), you may have to manually ensure that the spawned
236 process behind each xterm has the correct size. For example, if you
237 create or set the xterm to a size, you may have to send an explicit
238 stty command with the correct size to the spawned process(es). Alter‐
239 natively, you can add the correct size argument when an xterm is cre‐
240 ated (i.e., "-geometry 80x20").
241 Multixterm can only control new xterms that multixterm itself has
243 started.
244 As a convenience, the File menu shows a limited number of files. To
246 show all the files, use File->Open.
247
250 $DOTDIR/.multixtermrc initial command file
251 ~/.multixtermrc fallback command file
252 ~/lib/multixterm/ default command file directory
253
256 If multixterm is killed using an uncatchable kill, the xterms are not
257 killed. This appears to be a bug in xterm itself.
258 Send/expect sequences can be done in multixterm command files. How‐
260 ever, due to the richness of the possibilities, to document it properly
261 would take more time than the author has at present.
262
265 Requires Expect 5.36.0 or later.
266 Requires Tk 8.3.3 or later.
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270 This man page describes version 1.8 of multixterm.
271 The latest version of multixterm is available from
273 http://expect.nist.gov/example/multixterm . If your version of Expect
274 and Tk are too old (see REQUIREMENTS above), download a new version of
275 Expect from http://expect.nist.gov
276
279 April 30, 2002
280
283 Don Libes <don@libes.com>
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287 Multixterm is in the public domain; however the author would appreciate
288 acknowledgement if multixterm or parts of it or ideas from it are used.
289 16 August 2002 MULTIXTERM(1)