Ttyjfyk

I'm running Awesome WM on latest Arch Linux and use Gnome Terminal as my terminal with Bash shell. I've managed to get this working, but I wonder if any form of improvement is possible to my implementation. The question does not relate to opening new tabs, only to opening new terminal windows.

First I have rewritten the cd command to save the current working directory into a file:

~/.bashrc

alias cd='source /home/my_user/.cd_extend'

~/.cd_extend

#!/bin/bash
command cd $1
echo $(pwd) > ~/.terminal_directory

Afterwards I can open the terminal, which reads from the .terminal_directory file and opens a new gnome shell with the given working directory.

open_terminal.sh

#!/bin/bash
DIR=$(cat /home/my_user/.terminal_directory)
gnome-terminal --working-directory=$DIR

awesomewm rc.lua

terminal = "/home/my_user/.dotfiles/open_terminal.sh
awful.key( modkey, , "Return", function () awful.util.spawn(terminal) end)

I wonder if I have missed any internal bash functionality which could have simplified this in possibly less files. And wonder if there is room for improvement.

In the menu of Gnome-terminal, use:

File --> Open Terminal 

That will open a new window using the pwd as the directory.

Also, you may set the open tabs:

Edit --> Preferences --> General --> Open new terminals in: --> select tab.

So new terminals will open in the same window with the same pwd.

You will still be able to open new windows if needed:

Alt-F2 --> gnome-terminal

After a few days of testing and asking around, this seems to be the easiest implementation. It could be done with a global state which Awesome WM reads, however to keep predictability and ease of implementation I'm keeping this.

~/.bashrc

alias cd='source /home/my_user/.cd_extend'

~/.cd_extend

#!/bin/bash
command cd "$1"
pwd > ~/.terminal_directory

Afterwards I can open the terminal, which reads from the .terminal_directory file and opens a new gnome shell with the given working directory.

open_terminal.sh

#!/bin/bash
DIR=$(cat /home/my_user/.terminal_directory)
gnome-terminal --working-directory=$DIR

awesomewm rc.lua

terminal = "/home/my_user/.dotfiles/open_terminal.sh
awful.key( modkey, , "Return", function () awful.util.spawn(terminal) end)

On Arch Linux (at least), you can add the following line into ~/.bashrc:

source /etc/profile.d/vte.sh

There is already a related question about new tabs. It turns out that the answer is the same.