How to change the title bar of your xterm

Many users find it convenient to have the current directory displayed in the title bar of their xterm. It is a simple configuration change to make this change permanent.

To set your title:

Use your favorite editor to open your [local] copy of the file named, ~/.cshrc.local

Find and uncomment the following line to set the mytitle alias. To uncomment a line, just delete the # character at the start of the line. To comment out a line, just add the # character at the start of the line or comment.

          alias mytitle 'icon_name; echo -n ^[]1\;$icon_name\^G^[]2\;$HOSTNAME\: $cwd\^G'

Find and uncomment the following lines to call the mytitle alias and the prompt and titles to the current directory.

          mytitle
          alias cd 'chdir \!*; mytitle'
          alias cd 'chdir \!*;set prompt="`dirs`#\\!% "; mytitle'
          alias pushd 'pushd \!*; mytitle'
          alias popd 'popd \!*; mytitle'

There are many other configuration options available to you within the ~/.cshrc.local file. But do not edit carelessly. You may not be able to login if you "break" this file by introducing a syntax or other more serious error while modifying your shell configuration.