Open new Terminal tabs from the command line

tab.bash

#!/bin/bash
#
# Open new Terminal tabs from the command line
#
# Author: Justin Hileman (http://justinhileman.com)
#
# Installation:
#     Add the following function to your `.bashrc` or `.bash_profile`,
#     or save it somewhere (e.g. `~/.tab.bash`) and source it in `.bashrc`
#
# Usage:
#     tab                   Opens the current directory in a new tab
#     tab [PATH]            Open PATH in a new tab
#     tab [CMD]             Open a new tab and execute CMD
#     tab [PATH] [CMD] ...  You can prob'ly guess

# Only for teh Mac users
[ `uname -s` != "Darwin" ] && return

function tab () {
    local cmd=""
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    if [ -n "$args" ]; then
        cmd="; $args"
    fi

    osascript &>/dev/null <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm"
            tell current terminal
                launch session "Default Session"
                tell the last session
                    write text "cd \"$cdto\"$cmd"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
EOF
}

tab.fish

# Open new iTerm and Terminal tabs from the command line
#
# Author: Justin Hileman (http://justinhileman.com)
#
# Usage:
#     tab                   Opens the current directory in a new tab
#     tab [PATH]            Open PATH in a new tab
#     tab [CMD]             Open a new tab and execute CMD
#     tab [PATH] [CMD] ...  You can prolly guess

function tab -d "Open the current directory in a new tab"
  set -l cmd ""
  set -l cdto (pwd)

  if test (count $argv) -gt 0
    pushd . >/dev/null
    if test -d $argv[1]
      cd $argv[1]
      set cdto (pwd)
      set -e argv[1]
    end
    popd >/dev/null
  end

  if test (count $argv) -gt 0
    set cmd "; $argv"
  end

  switch $TERM_PROGRAM

  case 'iTerm.app'
    osascript 2>/dev/null -e "
      tell application \"iTerm\"
        tell current terminal
          launch session \"Default Session\"
          tell the last session
            write text \"cd \\\"$cdto\\\"$cmd\"
          end tell
        end tell
      end tell
    "

  case 'Apple_Terminal'
    osascript 2>/dev/null -e "
      tell application \"Terminal\"
        activate
        tell application \"System Events\" to keystroke \"t\" using command down
        repeat while contents of selected tab of window 1 starts with linefeed
          delay 0.01
        end repeat
        do script \"cd \\\"$cdto\\\"$cmd\" in window 1
      end tell
    "

  case '*'
    echo "Unknown terminal: $TERM_PROGRAM" >&2
  end
end

nice.

Super!

the bash execution from function seem disabled, because of latest shellshock
https://shellshocker.net/

glorious!

does this allow for multiple commands to be executed in a newly opened tab? as in
tab [CMD1] && [CMD2 also executed in same shell as CMD1]

UPDATE: just kidding; passing multiple commands concatenated as one long string works just fine.

fabulous.

Very cool, there is a way to split in multiple tabs in the same term (i am using iTerm) ??

Sweet! thank you.

Doesn't work with the nightly versions of iTerm2, forked and updated it to work: https://gist.github.com/vitalybe/021d2aecee68178f3c52

Dangerously buggy if passed a multi-argument list -- you wouldn't want to tab ls /tmp/* if you weren't 100% certain that there didn't exist a file created with touch '/tmp/$(rm -rf $HOME)' -- and also has issues with arguments with spaces and quotes. First commented the below on vitalybe's fork, but it's relevant here too:

---

printf -v args '%q ' "$@", if you want to generate your arguments in eval-safe form. Otherwise, you're inviting bugs -- local args="$@" flattens the original array into a string, and a string can't store array boundaries in a safe way without escaping.

To provide an example:

$ set -- "first arg" "second arg" "third arg"
$ args_flat="$@"
$ args_arr=( "$@" )
$ declare -p args_flat args_arr
declare -- args_flat="first arg second arg third arg"
declare -a args_arr='([0]="first arg" [1]="second arg" [2]="third arg")'

Now, if your goal is an eval-safe string, that would look like this:

$ printf -v args_str '%q ' "$@"
$ declare -p args_str
declare -- args_str="first\\ arg second\\ arg third\\ arg "

What this did is generate a chunk of script which, if parsed by a shell, will evaluate back to its original inputs -- with first arg, second arg, and third arg each still recognized as separate words. This is thus something you could safely append to cmd.

Dude, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank-you!

Forked and modified to open new horizontal panes

I'm getting this, any idea?

~/dotfiles ☀️  ✖ 1 $ tab ls
58:66: syntax error: Expected end of line but found identifier. (-2741)

@cmer

Looks like a newer version of osascript or iterm has caused this error. I found the updated syntax to use on iterms site which has given me this updated code. Cheers.

# needed to use exit instead of return
[ `uname -s` != "Darwin" ] && echo "Cannot run on non-macosx system." && exit

function tab () {
    local cmd=""
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    if [ -n "$args" ]; then
        cmd="$args"
    fi

    osascript -i <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm"
            tell current window
                create tab with default profile
                tell the current session
                    write text "cd \"$cdto\"; $cmd"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
EOF
}

tab "echo hello"

@Jackman3005,

Thanks for the update! The code worked, but I was having trouble running the command (i.e. cmd). Made changes to my code, in case anyone else wants to use it (am using iTerm2):

function tab () {
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    osascript -i <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm2"
                tell current window
                        create tab with default profile
                        tell the current session
                                write text "cd \"$cdto\" && $args"
                        end tell
                end tell
        end tell
EOF
}

Cheers!

As of at least macos Mojave, iTerm 3.2.8, if you run:

$ open -a iTerm .

It will add it as a tab to the current window.

$ open -a iTerm .

Sure, just destroy all their hard work. But, thanks!

Somehow it doesn't work so I change a bit to make sure it addresses my needs: to open a tab vertically and run the command.

#!/bin/bash

[ `uname -s` != "Darwin" ] && return

function tab () {
    local cmd=""
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    if [ -n "$args" ]; then
        cmd="; $args"
    fi

    osascript &>/dev/null <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm"
            activate
            tell current session of current window to set newTab to split vertically with same profile
            tell newTab
                select
                write text "cd \"$cdto\"$cmd"
            end tell 
        end tell
EOF
}

Save it to a file, source it and test it by:

tab echo 123

noob question - will this work with zsh too?

@newplasticideas there are currently bash and fish implementations. it's possible to port this to zsh as well, but if you're going to do that, i'd suggest starting with https://github.com/oh-my-fish/plugin-tab which has been updated more recently and supports a lot more terminals :)

ITerm2's Applescript is deprecated. Take a look at the Python API and this example: https://iterm2.com/python-api/tutorial/example.html