One, often preferred way would be to use tmux, screen or the like. If this is not an option – you want multiple terminal windows etc. you could go about it in a more complex way.
This looks ugly and can be solved better, but as a starting point. This is bash based using wmctrl to position terminal windows.
1. Positioning terminal windows.
I use a quick mash-up (ugly script) for resizing and positioning terminal windows using wmctrl. I have this in a function named c which takes one or optionally two arguments. This can be hacked to meet ones needs.
c()
{
local -i tbar_height=23 # To take title bar into account.
local win r="-ir"
local -i w h w2 h2 y2
# Argument 2 is Window ID, x or none.
if [[ "$2" =~ ^0x[0-9a-f]+$ ]]; then
win="$2"
elif [[ "$2" == "x" ]]; then
win="$(xprop -root \
-f _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW \
0x "\t\$0" _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | \
cut -f2)"
else
win=":ACTIVE:"
r="-r"
fi
# Get monitor size (fear this easily can bug – should be done better).
read -d ', ' w h <<< \
$( awk 'NR == 1 { print $8, $10; exit }' <(xrandr) )
((w2 = w / 2)) # Monitor width / 2
((h2 = h / 2 - tbar_height)) # Monitor height / 2 - title bar
((y2 = h / 2)) # Monitor height / 2 - title bar
case "$1" in # g, x, y, w, h
"nw") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, 0, 0, $w2, $h2";;
"ne") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, $w2, 0, $w2, $h2";;
"se") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, $w2, $y2, $w2, $h2";;
"sw") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, 0, $y2, $w2, $h2";;
"n") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, 0, 0, $w, $h2";;
"e") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, $w2, 0, $w2, $h";;
"s") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, 0, $y2, $w, $h2";;
"w") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, 0, 0, $w2, $h";;
"mh") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, -1, -1, -1, $h";;
"mw") wmctrl $r "$win" -e "0, -1, -1, $w, -1";;
esac
}
To position window north-west one say c nw, north-east c ne etc. Arguments mh and mw is max height and max width respectively. Window ID can be passed as argument two, or "x" for the script to read it from xprop – else use :ACTIVE:.
2. Script to initialize bash session in new terminal windows, request positioning, and start ssh (or whatever).
Here one can tune it to take host as argument etc.
#!/bin/bash
# Source positioning script.
. "$HOME/scripts/bash/_mypos_wmctrl"
# Position window according to argument 1.
c "$1"
# Act according to argument 2.
case "$2" in
"host1") ssh -t user@host1 "cd www; bash";;
"host2") ssh -t user@host2 "cd mail; bash";;
"host3") ssh -t user@host3 "cd dev; bash";;
"host4") ssh -t user@host4;;
esac
# Add this if one want to keep terminal window open after exit from ssh
/bin/bash
3. Launcher script.
Sleep is needed for wmctrl to get window ID and act upon it. You might want to look into xtoolwait or similar instead.
#!/bin/bash
terminal=some-terminal-emulator
$terminal -e '/path/to/script2 "nw" "host1"'
sleep 1
$terminal -e '/path/to/script2 "ne" "host2"'
sleep 1
$terminal -e '/path/to/script2 "se" "host3"'
sleep 1
$terminal -e '/path/to/script2 "sw" "host4"'
sleep 1
Had a script once, long lost and forgotten, that also saved window ID's to tmp file which upon another script could be called to move all terminals to other desktop, raise all to focus, shuffle, etc.
Using wmctrl it should be usable with most emulators (and other applications if one want).
As it is now ---^, (the script samples provided), it is rather ugly, but you can perhaps use some of it as a base.
