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I know how to start a Konsole with one executable running in it, and leave the Konsole open after the program ends. I can do this using a .desktop file and change some options in it.

But I would like one step further, to launch a KDE konsole with multiple tabs open, each running a particular program, and that when the program finishes it stays open and give you a prompt.

There's no man page for Konsole so I don't even know what options it can take. Or some d-bus calls? Thanks

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  • you can do it through qdbus: e.g. qdbus org.kde.konsole /Konsole newSession Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 10:42
  • $ qdbus org.kde.konsole Service 'org.kde.konsole' does not exist. But adding -PID works. But also the doc (docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/applications/konsole/scripting.html) says not to use /Konsole... Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 12:18

6 Answers 6

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25

This must be a one-liner or a bug report must be submitted. Every other common terminal has this option. I did some research and the "almost one-liner solution" is this:

  1. Create a file configuring your tabulators like so and name it, let's say "tabs":
 title: %n;; command: /usr/bin/htop title: %n;; command: /usr/bin/ncmpcpp

(The full documentation is at https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/konsole/konsole/command-line-options.html. The called command binaries are examples. The %n will name the tab exactly like the command)

  1. Execute it like so:

    konsole --tabs-from-file path_to_tabs_file/tabs

Result: A new konsole window with 3 tabs, running defined binaries and one empty prompt. I couldn't get a bash script to run. But I did just a few minutes of testing.

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15

I did some more digging and found and even more "subjectively" beautiful answer. Goal: start empty shell, music player and screen session running irssi in 3 different tabs in konsole:

  1. Create a simple, executable script file with:

#!/bin/bash konsole --hold --new-tab & konsole --hold --new-tab -e $SHELL -c "/usr/bin/screen -DRS irssi-in-screen irssi" & konsole --hold --new-tab -e $SHELL -c "/usr/bin/ncmpcpp" &

The clue is not to execute the the command directly but to call a shell, that can take in all arguments passed. $SHELL is set to /bin/bash. This "issue" is documented here:

Quote: " Konsole treats arguments after the -e option as one command and runs it directly, instead of parsing it and possibly dividing it into sub-commands for execution. This is different from xterm.

konsole -e "command1 ; command2" does not work konsole -e $SHELL -c "command1 ; command2" works
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Thanks for this answer! When I use it to run commands though, they seem to be running in a different 'environment' (wrong term?) than when I open a terminal directly; i.e. aliases defined in my .bashrc don't work, and it uses a different version of Node than I have setup with nvm. Any idea how this could be made to work, but have the commands run in the 'same way' as when I run them directly in a standard terminal?
BTW when using this solution you can also specify --layout path/to/layout.json which would open a new tab with spit views how you like
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This is a solution using qdbus, see D-Bus documentation. The Konsole docs doesn't say much about the interfaces used, so some experimenting is necessary. I've left comments in the code about the things I attempted but that didn't work.

This works in KDE 5.

#! /bin/bash # Multi command start in various konsole tabs # List of commands to run, with parameters, in quotes, space-separated; do not use quotes inside (see bash arrays) COMMANDS=("/my/prog1 param" "/my/prog2 param2" "/my/prog3 param1 param2 param3") # KDS=$KONSOLE_DBUS_SERVICE # This is a ref to current Konsole and only works in Konsole # KDS=$(org.kde.konsole) # This is found in some examples but is incomplete qdbus >/tmp/q0 # Get the current list of konsoles /usr/bin/konsole # Launch a new konsole # PID=$! # And get its PID - But for some reason this is off by a few sleep 1 qdbus >/tmp/q1 # Get the new list of konsoles # KDS=org.kde.konsole-$PID # KDS=org.kde.konsole # Sometimes KDS=$(diff /tmp/q{0,1} | grep konsole) # Let's hope there's only one #echo $KDS KDS=${KDS:3} echo $KDS echo $KDS >/tmp/KDS echo >>/tmp/KDS qdbus $KDS >>/tmp/KDS || exit echo >>/tmp/KDS # See note https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/applications/konsole/scripting.html about using /Konsole qdbus $KDS /Konsole >>/tmp/KDS echo >>/tmp/KDS FirstTime=1 for i in "${COMMANDS[@]}" do echo "Starting: $i" echo >>/tmp/KDS if [ $FirstTime -eq 1 ] then session=$(qdbus $KDS /Konsole currentSession) FirstTime=0 else session=$(qdbus $KDS /Konsole newSession) fi echo $session >>/tmp/KDS # Test: Display possible actions qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} >>/tmp/KDS # Doesn't work well, maybe use setTabTitleFormat 0/1 instead # Title "0" appears to be the initial title, title "1" is the title used after commands are executed. #qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} setTitle 0 $i #qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} setTitle 1 $i # The line break is necessary to commit the command. \n doesn't work qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} sendText "${i} " # Optional: will ping when there's no more output in the window qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} setMonitorSilence true done

Update 2016: the structure of qdbus has changed again. Here's an update of the above script (I left out the original since depending on your KDE version you may need one or the other):

#! /bin/bash # Multi command start in various konsole tabs # List of commands to run, with parameters, in quotes, space-separated; do not use quotes inside (see bash arrays) COMMANDS=("echo 1" "echo 2" "echo 3") # KDS=$KONSOLE_DBUS_SERVICE # This is the ref of the current konsole and only works in a konsole # KDS=$(org.kde.konsole) # This is found in some examples but is incomplete qdbus >/tmp/q0 # Get the current list of konsoles /usr/bin/konsole # Launch a new konsole sleep 1 qdbus >/tmp/q1 # Get the new list of konsoles KDS=$(diff /tmp/q{0,1} | grep konsole) # Let's hope there's only one KDS=${KDS:3} echo $KDS echo $KDS >/tmp/KDS echo >>/tmp/KDS qdbus $KDS >>/tmp/KDS || exit echo >>/tmp/KDS # See note https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/applications/konsole/scripting.html about using /Konsole qdbus $KDS /konsole >>/tmp/KDS echo >>/tmp/KDS FirstTime=1 for i in "${COMMANDS[@]}" do echo "Starting: $i" echo >>/tmp/KDS if [ $FirstTime -eq 1 ] then session=$(qdbus $KDS /Windows/1 currentSession) FirstTime=0 else session=$(qdbus $KDS /Windows/1 newSession) fi echo $session >>/tmp/KDS # Test: Display possible actions qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} >>/tmp/KDS # The line break is necessary to commit the command. \n doesn't work qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} sendText "${i} " # Optional: will ping when there's no more output in the window qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} setMonitorSilence true done
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This looks lovely, but I don't know enough to modify it. How could I get it to start a new instance of konsole with 5 tabs open in different directories, but not running anything? I'm using KDE 5.18.0 on Ubuntu 16.04. If this is too involved, I can ask it as a separate question.
Simply comment out the line with sendText and sendMonitorSilence. But this script does not work anymore, they changed the structure of the calls, again. I'll update it.
+1 Thanks. That works great! If I could trouble you for one last thing: After I start three sessions in the loop, how do I get it to make the first session the active one instead of the last one which was created? I saved its session number in a variable, but don't know how to use it. I didn't see a method that looked like it would do that.
I tried playing with qdbus $KDS but did not find anything resembling an activate function for a tab and/or session.
There is also runCommand which is a bit more appropriate than sendText.
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4

aaa.json

{ "Orientation": "Vertical", "Widgets": [ { "SessionRestoreId": 0 }, { "SessionRestoreId": 0 } ] }

aaa.sh

#!/bin/bash konsole --layout aaa.json & KPID=$! sleep 0.1 # # Run smth # qdbus org.kde.konsole-$KPID /Sessions/1 runCommand 'pwd' qdbus org.kde.konsole-$KPID /Sessions/2 runCommand 'ls' # # Tune konsole instance a bit # qdbus org.kde.konsole-$KPID /Sessions/1 setTitle 1 'I love pwd!' qdbus org.kde.konsole-$KPID /Sessions/2 setTitle 1 'And I love ls!' qdbus org.kde.konsole-$KPID /Windows/1 setCurrentSession 1

What happened

$ uname -a Linux comp 6.5.0-14-generic #14-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Nov 14 14:59:49 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION plasma $ konsole -v konsole 23.08.1
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what is SessionRestoreId property?
1

I use the following shell script to create several tabs with different commands in one Konsole window:

#!/usr/bin/env zsh WORKDIR=~/projects/example cd $WORKDIR konsole --new-tab --workdir $WORKDIR/protobuf konsole --new-tab --workdir $WORKDIR -e $SHELL -i -c "poetry shell; $SHELL -i" konsole --new-tab --workdir $WORKDIR -e $SHELL -i -c "poetry shell; $SHELL -i" konsole --new-tab --workdir $WORKDIR -e $SHELL -i -c "docker compose up --detach postgres; $SHELL -i" konsole --new-tab --workdir $WORKDIR -e $SHELL -i -c "docker compose logs --follow postgres; $SHELL -i" konsole --new-tab --workdir $WORKDIR -e $SHELL -i -c "poetry run ipython; $SHELL -i" clear

Konsole options:

--new-tab Creates a new tab in an existing window. 'Run all Konsole windows in a single process' checkbox must be enabled in settings (Setting->Configure Konsole...->General->Process and window). --workdir WORKDIR Opens `WORKDIR` as an initial working directory. -e COMMAND Executes `COMMAND` instead of a shell. This option must be the last option to correctly catch command arguments.

Zsh options:

-i Forces a shell to be interactive. The shell reads `.zshrc` contents. -c Takes the first argument as a command to execute.

; $SHELL -i is added to some commands to run an interactive shell after a main command termination. This is useful if you want to run other commands later and preserve a scrollback.

Also I added the following Konsole bookmark (Bookmarks->Edit Bookmarks...->New Bookmark):

Name: example Location: . /home/username/Konsole/example.sh

. (source) is required to run the shell script in the current shell to change the working directory to WORKDIR with cd in the first tab.

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-1

qdbus solution above didn't work for me because blockable call /usr/bin/konsole, so I upgrade it a little. I'm using ZSH so change shebang on yours.

#! /bin/zsh # Multi command start in various konsole tabs # List of commands to run, with parameters, in quotes, space-separated; do not use quotes inside (see bash arrays) COMMANDS=("vi" "nano") # Geting length of the COMMANDS array len_arr=${#COMMANDS[@]} # Simple /usr/bin/konsole block this script, no work for me. So use qdbus to run konsole qdbus org.kde.klauncher5 /KLauncher exec_blind "/usr/bin/konsole" "/home/$USER" # Wait until konsole was run up completely. 1s for me sleep 1s # get the last added konsole and save it in $KDS variable qdbus | grep konsole | tail -1 | { read KDS } # loop the array with commands . for (( i=1; i<=$len_arr; i++ )) do if [ $i -gt 1 ] then # for all commands beside first getting the number of the new konsole tab session=$(qdbus $KDS /Windows/1 newSession) else # get the number of the current console tab session=$(qdbus $KDS /Windows/1 currentSession) fi # run current command in tab qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} runCommand "${COMMANDS[$i]}" # Silence if you need. I'm not using it. # Optional: will ping when there's no more output in the window # qdbus $KDS /Sessions/${session} setMonitorSilence true done
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