Launch iTerm2 and Set Session Title

This script demonstrates two concepts:

1. Launching iTerm2 using PyObjC and running the script only after it is launched.

2. Setting a session’s name.

Further, it demonstrates how to change a profile setting so the session title can’t be later changed by a control sequence.

Launching the app is useful when the script is run from the command line rather than from within iTerm2. To run this script from the command line you’ll need to install its dependencies first:

brew install python3
pip3 install iterm2
pip3 install pyobjc

Here’s the code:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import iterm2
import AppKit

# Launch the app
AppKit.NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().launchApplication_("iTerm2")

async def main(connection):
    app = await iterm2.async_get_app(connection)

    # Foreground the app
    await app.async_activate()

    # Create a new tab or window
    myterm = app.current_terminal_window
    if not myterm:
        myterm = await iterm2.Window.async_create(connection)
    else:
        await myterm.async_create_tab()
    await myterm.async_activate()

    # Update the name and disable future updates by
    # control sequences.
    #
    # Changing the name this way is equivalent to
    # editing the Session Name field in
    # Session>Edit Session.
    session = myterm.current_tab.current_session
    update = iterm2.LocalWriteOnlyProfile()
    update.set_allow_title_setting(False)
    update.set_name("This is my customized session name")
    await session.async_set_profile_properties(update)

# Passing True for the second parameter means keep trying to
# connect until the app launches.
iterm2.run_until_complete(main, True)

Note that if you download and install the package below it will install the needed dependencies for running this script from within iTerm2 but your system Python configuration will not be modified. You still need to follow the steps above to install Python 3, the iterm2 Python module, and PyObjC if you plan to run this from the command line.

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