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I work on a lot of tabs in terminal at a given time. Sometimes, I get tabs mixed up and accidently run commands on tabs I am not supposed to.

To simplify this, I wish to write some script, that on each new tab creation, comes with a random background color (not the text background, the window background), so that I can easily identify the tabs I was working with.

Any suggestions ?

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The built-in default "Solid Colors" profile randomly selects a background color for each new terminal.

It works by setting the background image to a folder of images, each of which is a solid color. To choose different colors (or patterns, etc.) you can place a collection of images in a folder and set a profile to use the folder in

Preferences > Profiles > [profile] > Text > Background > Image:

Another feature of profiles is that if you create a new terminal with Shell > New Command or New Remote Connection it will look for a profile with a matching name and select that profile. It will look for a match of the entire command string, a partial match of the command name and arguments starting from the left, and it will also try to interpret the profile name as a regular expression.

This means you can name a profile “ssh” to have it selected for any ssh command, or “ssh hostname” for ssh commands whose first argument matches hostname, for example.

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  • That's a pretty sweet hack, great find! The way it's worded in there, it's not very intuitive that an entire directory can be selected, let alone that it will randomly grab from there. – dhempler Dec 16 '15 at 13:36
  • @dennis.hempler The built-in “Solid Colors” profile exists to demonstrate this capability. In general, the built-in default profiles each attempt to demonstrate various appearance features, like translucency, blur, etc. I recommend trying each of them out. – Chris Page Dec 16 '15 at 13:49
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I would highly recommend using iTerm2 I'm still finding cool new features. I don't know about a truly random background color, but I know you can change your settings based on user, host, file system location. Though, that feature may still be in beta.

Yes, that's still in beta:

Automatic Profile Switching Using the Shell Integration feature, you can have iTerm2 switch profiles depending on what you're doing. For example, you can define a profile that's always used when you ssh to some hostname. Or when your username is root. Or even when you're in a particular directory.

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  • I've been using iTerm2 for a while now but I haven't found anything new, helpful, interesting, special, exciting, etc. What's so good about it? Genuinely curious. – voices Dec 26 '15 at 4:30
  • Why are you using it if you don't find it special or helpful for that matter? In the unlikely event you're not trolling, Triggers is the original reason I changed to it. – dhempler Dec 30 '15 at 19:02
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    Ugh. No; I'm not "trolling." I resent the implication. You said, "I would highly recommend using iTerm2 I'm still finding cool new features." You're advocating it. I'm using it. I haven't discovered any "cool new features" yet. You have. I thought, perhaps, you wouldn't mind sharing that information.. – voices Dec 30 '15 at 20:34
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If you want permanent customization, look at the nice details here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/99453/118237

For temporarily change, all you need to do is right-click on the terminal tab, choose "Inspect Tab", and make change via Info or Settings tabs.

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BTW, this information is based on Terminal Version 2.7.3 (388.1.1).

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