How to start Terminator with split screens and custom commands running

Starting Terminator with split screens is quite simple: Just store a layout and start Terminator with the --layout <your layout> option.

However, if you want to run custom commands in your terminals, you need to do some work to keep these terminals from closing after a command exits. You accomplish this by tweaking bash to run a command before actually starting.

Pimp your .bashrc

Add this to the end of .bashrc:

# hack to keep a bash open when starting it with a command
[[ $startup_cmd ]] && { declare +x $startup_cmd; history -s "$startup_cmd $startup_args"; eval "$startup_cmd $startup_args"; }

Store a Terminator layout

1. Open Terminator preferences
2. Go to the Layouts tab
3. Press "Add"
4. Add a custom command to each split terminal. Format:

command = 'env startup_cmd="<your_command>" startup_args="<your_arguments>" bash'

Edit Terminator boot command

In case you ALWAYS want to run Terminator with certain options, run sudo vim /usr/share/applications/terminator.desktop and change the Exec line to this:

Exec=terminator --layout <your_layout> --maximise --working-directory=<working_directory>