Mrxvt Wiki | Tips / Dynamically changing the mini icon the mrxvt window

This page describes how you can set up fvwm to set the mini icon of your mrxvt window to an icon reflecting the command running in the active tab.

The first thing you need to do is set up your shell so that it sets the tab title to the name of the the current command. Instructions on how to do this can be found Tips.

Next synchronize the window title to the title of the active tab by adding the line

    Mrxvt.syncTabTitle:    True

to your ~/.mrxvtrc.

Now you need to tell Fvwm to change the mini-icon of your terminal windows every time the tab title changes. First put the following lines in the file ~/.fvwm/seticon.pl:

    # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
    #                                                                              #
    #                                USER SETTINGS                                 #
    #                                                                              #
    # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #


    #
    # Defining icons: The @regexps array contains a list (ordered by priority) of
    # hash refferences. Each hash refferences points to a hash where the keys of the
    # hash are the icon file names. The values of the hash are a regexp. There are
    # two special keys: "beg" and "end". The values corresponding to these special
    # keys is a regexp that is concatinated with the beginning and end
    # (respecitvely) of the icon regexp. The resulting regexp is then matched
    # against the window title. If it matches, the icon is used for the miniicon of
    # the window.
    #
    # You can define as many hashes as you want, with different "beg" and "end"
    # regexps. If the "beg" and "end" keys are not defined for a particular hash,
    # they are treated as "^" and "$". Remember also, that for any particular hash
    # the regexps you define are not guaranteed to match in the order you defined
    # them (since perl does not guarantee that hash entries are stored in any
    # particular order).
    #

    my @regexps = (
        # Some generic icons (matched against the whole window title).
        {
            'mimetypes/message.png'     => qr/mutt-.*\bVIM/,
            'password.png'              => qr'.*\((/home/gautam|~)/crypt\S*\).*'
        },

        # Icons for programs (matched against a whole word at the start of the
        # title)
        {
            end                             => qr/(?:\s|$)/,
            'mutt.png'                      => qr/mutt/,
            'mimetypes/man.png'             => qr/man/,
            'web_terminal.png'              => qr/w3m/,
            'mini.fvwm.xpm'         => qr/FvwmConsole/,
            'kppp.png'                      => qr/(?:connect.sh|wvdial)/,
            'tux.png'                       => qr/su/,
            'gentoo.png'            => qr/(?:emerge:?|>>>)/
        },

        # Icons for filetypes (matched against the extension of the filename that is
        # being edited in VIM).
        {
            beg                             => qr/^\S*\./,
            end                             => qr/\s.*- [A-Z0-9]+$/,
            'mimetypes/source_c.png'        => qr/c/,
            'mimetypes/source_cpp.png'      => qr/(?:C|cpp)/,
            'mimetypes/source_h.png'        => qr/h/,
            'mimetypes/source_pl.png'       => qr/p[lm]/,
            'mimetypes/source_py.png'       => qr/py/,
            'mimetypes/shellscript.png'     => qr/(?:tc|c)?sh/,
            'mimetypes/tex.png'             => qr/(?:sty|cls|tex)/,
            'mimetypes/html.png'    => qr/html?/
        },

        # Defaults (matched last, against the whole window title).
        {
            'vim.png'                       => qr/.*- [A-Z0-9]+$/
        }
    );


    #
    # Icon to use if nothing matches.
    #
    my $default = "xterm.png";

    # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #
    #                                                                              #
    #                              END USER SETTINGS                               #
    #                                                                              #
    # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #


    my ($winid, $name, $icon) = @b;
    my ($href, $key, $newicon);

    #print( "$winid, $name, $icon\n" );

    OUTER: foreach $href (@regexps)
    {
        my ($beg, $end) = ($href->{beg}, $href->{end});
        $beg = qr/^/ if( !defined( $beg ) );
        $end = qr/$/ if( !defined( $end ) );

        foreach $key ( keys( %$href ) )
        {
            next if( $key eq 'beg' || $key eq 'end' );

            if( $name =~ m/$beg$href->{$key}$end/ )
            {
                $newicon = $key;
                last OUTER;
            }
        }
    }

    $newicon = $default if( !defined($newicon) );

    if( $icon !~ m'/$newicon$' )
    {
        cmd( "Test (I $newicon) WindowId $winid WindowStyle MiniIcon $newicon" );
        #print( "WindowId $winid WindowStyle MiniIcon $newicon\n" )
    }

The seticon.pl file above is a perl script that matches regexp's against the window title, and appropriately sets the miniicon. The regexp / icon files are defined in the beginning of the file, so you can add or modify the list as needed.

Next you need to tell fvwm to run the seticon.pl script everytime a window title changes. Add the following lines to ~/.fvwm/perlwops.fvwm:

    # Add to StartFunction so FvwmPerl is launched on startup
    Test (Start)  AddToFunc  StartFunction I Module FvwmPerl perlwops
    Test (!Start) KillModule FvwmPerl perlwops
    Test (!Start) Module     FvwmPerl perlwops


    #
    # Functions to sett the mini-icon of xterm / mrxvt windows based on the title
    #
    DestroyFunc     FnSetIcon
    AddToFunc       FnSetIcon
    + I SendToModule perlwops eval                              \
        @b = ( '$[w.id]', $[w.name], '$[w.miniiconfile]' );     \
        load( "seticon.pl" );

    DestroyModuleConfig SetIcon*
    # 2005-12-14: We could speed things up by not setting the Icon on undecorated /
    # borderless windows. However this has the undesired effect of having the wrong
    # miniicon in the pager and WindowList menu.
    *SetIcon: Cmd           'ThisWindow ("XTerm")'
    *SetIcon: window_name   "FnSetIcon"

    Test (Start)  AddToFunc  StartFunction I Module FvwmEvent SetIcon
    Test (!Start) KillModule FvwmEvent SetIcon
    Test (!Start) Module     FvwmEvent SetIcon

Now either Read perlwops.fvwm from a FvwmConsole in an already running fvwm session, or add the line

    Read perlwops.fvwm

to your fvwm config after you have defined StartFunction.

Finally you need a few icons to make things look good. If you don't have your favourites, then you can download my icons, and both the above scripts from the archive seticon-fvwm.tgz. (The perlwops.fvwm script from the archive does more than just set the miniicon. It provides functions to pack windows, etc. Comment them out if you don't plan on using them.)

NOTE: You need fvwm-2.5.18 or higher for this to work correctly. The reason being that the fvwm variable [w.name] (which contains the window title) was not quoted in previous version. Since window titles can contain any character, passing this variable to shell / perl scripts is not possible unless it is quoted properly. Version 2.5.18 and up correctly quote [w.name]