perhostcolor

A simple shell script to change the background term colour based on the length of the arguments ($@)

This script was originally written to facilitate visual distinction between local and multiple remote shells.

Being a DWM (one of many tiling window manager for X11) user who enjoys having lots of open xterminals logged to different hosts, I was looking for a simple and hassle-free solution, à la nickcolor.pl script for irssi.

Usage

	perhostcolor.sh [somestring]

How to use it with SSH

The way I primarily use this script, YMMV :

1. copy this script in your $PATH (~/bin for instance)
2. create a wrapper script for ssh :

		#!/bin/sh 
		# ~/bin/ssh.sh
		# A wrapper for ssh
		
		# Set specific bgcolor
		perhostcolor.sh $@
		# ssh to ...
		/usr/bin/ssh $@
		# Reset to original bgcolor
		perhostcolor.sh

3. create an alias for this wrapper script (in ~/.bashrc for me)

		# ~/.bashrc 
		alias ssh="~/bin/ssh.sh"

Mandatory screenshot

Limitations

This is a dummy script written for RXVT-Unicode (urxvt) that makes use to XTerm escape sequence for changing the background color, as stated in the urxvt (7) manpage.

Thus, it has not been tested thoroughly and might not work as-is on your favourite terminal.

Issues?

• contact me on IRC (freenode or oftc) as jerome or jer0me
• mail jerome at gcu.info