3

TLDR; Anybody got a good method of running multiple terminals with one command without tmux or something like that?

So I've got a lot of projects where I need multiple terminals running at the same time. Might be a backend + frontend application or something that's just split into multiple smaller applications. I usually just start multiple terminals and enter the commands to start the specific sub-application in each of them, but that's tedious, and developers are lazy.

I've tried making something nice with tmux, but I've found it to be a bit too cumbersome. Let's say I need to restart an application. Two interrupts and I've stopped one of four panes. And it's not very intuitive for beginners, and more often than not there are other developers involved.

Any suggestions on a good way to run multiple commands/applications at the same time, preferably with a single command? It has to work cross-platform as well as I work with Linux, Mac and Windows users.

Comments
  • 3
    Every noteworthy terminal lets you start it with a specific command, so you could write a small script that just starts a couple of terminals.

    Depends on your usecase how well that would work; the terminal will immediately close once the command is finished.

    But good luck getting anything running cross-platform lol.
  • 1
    Docker Compose maybe?

    It doesn't start terminals, but it starts your frontend, backend, ... And if you stay attached you see the logs prefixed with the container name in one log stream.

    Won't be a very good solution if you have to pass things into stdin for these applications though.
  • 1
    You had me until you said cross platform, that's just thrown everything out of the window.
  • 2
    I believe it's possible now to run Linux binaries in Windows. I haven't tried it but it's worth looking into.

    https://twitter.com/craigaloewen/...
  • 1
    @fruitfcker Couldn't you achieve this by just using the xserver on windows stuff you could use with putty for ages?

    Just point the DISPLAY env to that (and maybe disable/configure auth/xhost stuff) and it should work.
  • 1
    @LinusCDE I haven't tried that and I'm unsure how well Xserver runs on Windows.
  • 1
    @fruitfcker I think it isn't _the_ xserver but rather a port for windows. I even had an android app at one time that could do that.
  • 1
    I was going to say Terminator (it does everything you want) until you've said "Windows".

    Good luck!
  • 3
    @deadlyRants @C0D4 Any ideas if we were to throw Windows of of the equation then? 😅

    @nitwhiz Could work, but I find Docker being a bit cumbersome for things that are being developed on. Could be done with volumes, but I find it often becomes quite a hassle to manage with things like NPM and what not.
  • 1
    @ScriptCoded on windows I use MobaXterm, it coves multi console with many connection protocols, But... it's windows only.
Add Comment