Script or launcher to setup multiple terminal tabs in different locations

Solution 1:

You can do this using GNOME terminator which is a great terminal with, among other things, the ability to split panes horizontally or vertically.

Once you have installed terminator you can set up a profile with your desired settings (instructions adapted from here):

1. Run terminator, and set up the layout you want. You can use Ctrl+Shift+E to split windows vertically and Ctrl+Shift+O (that's O as in oodles, not zero) to split horizontally. For this example, I have created a layout with 6 panes:

   

2. Right click on the terminator window and chose "Preferences". Once the Preferences window is open, go to "Layouts" and click "Add":

   

3. That will populate the Layout list with your new layout:

   

4. Find each of the terminals you have created in the layout, and click on them, then on the right enter the command you want to run in them on startup:

   

   IMPORTANT: Note that the command is followed by ; bash. If you don't do that the terminals will not be accessible since they will run the command you give and exit. You need to launch a shell after each command to be able to use the terminals.

   Once you have set all the commands click "Close" and then exit terminator.

5. Open the terminator config file ~/.config/terminator/config and delete the section under layouts for the default config. Then change the name of the layout you created to default. It should look something like this:

   [global_config]
   [keybindings]
   [profiles]
     [[default]]
   [layouts]
     [[default]]
       [[[child0]]]
         position = 446:100
         type = Window
         order = 0
         parent = ""
         size = 885, 550
       [[[child1]]]
         position = 444
         type = HPaned
         order = 0
         parent = child0
       [[[child2]]]
         position = 275
         type = VPaned
         order = 0
         parent = child1
       [[[child5]]]
         position = 219
         type = HPaned
         order = 1
         parent = child1
       [[[child6]]]
         position = 275
         type = VPaned
         order = 0
         parent = child5
       [[[child9]]]
         position = 275
         type = VPaned
         order = 1
         parent = child5
       [[[terminal11]]]
         profile = default
         command = 'df -h; bash'
         type = Terminal
         order = 1
         parent = child9
       [[[terminal10]]]
         profile = default
         command = 'export foo="bar" && cd /var/www/; bash'
         type = Terminal
         order = 0
         parent = child9
       [[[terminal3]]]
         profile = default
         command = 'ssh -Yp 24222 [email protected]'
         type = Terminal
         order = 0
         parent = child2
       [[[terminal4]]]
         profile = default
         command = 'top; bash'
         type = Terminal
         order = 1
         parent = child2
       [[[terminal7]]]
         profile = default
         command = 'cd /etc; bash'
         type = Terminal
         order = 0
         parent = child6
       [[[terminal8]]]
         profile = default
         command = 'cd ~/dev; bash'
         type = Terminal
         order = 1
         parent = child6
   [plugins]
   

The final result is that when you run terminator it will open with 6 panes, each of which has run or is running the commands you have specified:

Solution 2:

In order to have Terminator cd into a directory on launch, the command to configure is:

cd ~/someFolder; bash

This opens a terminal in the location cded to.

Actually, terdon does mention this in his post but it is buried in his wonderful mini-tutorial. It wasn't after I'd figured this out that I noticed it buried in his post, so I'm leaving this answer in order to emphasize.