Comment 15 for bug 272749

Revision history for this message
Mikel Ward (mikelward) wrote :

The patch adds these options under the General tab:
   [ ] Bold the tab title when the terminal rings the bell
   [ ] ...even if I am working in that tab
   [ ] Flash the window's entry in the window list when the terminal rings the bell
   [ ] ...even if I am working in that window

which ones you turn on will depend on how you want to use it.

USE CASE 1 - Notify when command in background window is done

Description:
Enabling the "Bold the tab title" and "Flash the window's entry", but not the "...even" options provides a useful way of letting you know when a long-running command is finished. You can start a long-running command, go away and do something else, and then when the command is done, the terminal icon in the taskbar will flash. That way you don't have to keep Alt-Tabbing back to your terminal to check if the command is done.

Settings:
   [*] Bold the tab title when the terminal rings the bell
   [ ] ...even if I am working in that tab
   [*] Flash the window's entry in the window list when the terminal rings the bell
   [ ] ...even if I am working in that window

and put
   PS1="\\007$PS1"
at the end of your ~/.bashrc.

Demo:
   <http://mikelward.com/software/gnome/terminal-bell-demo2.ogv>

USE CASE 2 - Better visual bell

Description:
Enabling all four options will give you a persistent bell that you must acknowledge, so you don't miss an important event if you were away from your computer. e.g. if somebody sends you a message using "wall" or the system writes a critical log message on the console, the terminal icon in the taskbar will flash until you Alt-Tab back to the window (or, if you're already in that window, you can stop it flashing by typing something).

Settings:
   [*] Bold the tab title when the terminal rings the bell
   [*] ...even if I am working in that tab
   [*] Flash the window's entry in the window list when the terminal rings the bell
   [*] ...even if I am working in that window

and if you added
   PS1="\\007$PS1"
to your ~/.bashrc, for use case 1, you should remove it for use case 2.

Demo:
   <http://mikelward.com/software/gnome/terminal-bell-demo4.ogv>