TerminalColorsFromUserHost

SIMBL plugin to dynamically change Terminal.app foreground/background color based on user@host from title

Introduction

This hack should notice when a tab's title changes in OS X's Terminal.app and parse it for user@host. Then, using (currently hardcoded) predetermined values, it'll dynamically change the foreground and background color of the tab accordingly.

As a result, terminals logged in as "root" get red foreground text, and logged in as other than "gid" (my standard username) get blue foreground text. Then, the hostname changes the background colour.

At one point those choices need to be configurable, but this is an early release :)

Prerequisites

• SIMBL or EasySIMBL

• Mountain Lion Terminal.app. Will probably work on others, but the version numbers in the plist are currently hardcoded for this.

• Xcode

• A clue.

Installation

• Build it in Xcode and install the bundle using SIMBL.

• Make all shell configurations update the title.

To enable the title changes, set something like this in your zshrc:

case $TERM in
    xterm*)
        precmd () {print -Pn "\e]0;%n@%m\a"}
        ;;
esac

...if you use zsh. If you use bash or another shell, you're on your own :)

Note

It'll only really be useful (and even usable) if all the machines and shells you log into have this feature configured. Otherwise, the colors shown can be out-of-date and a potentially-dangerous false negative.

Improvements very welcome!