Auto open and split multiple Konsole tabs in KDE using a simple script

konsole-splits.md

How to script and configure Konsole Splits and Tabs Automatically

Find yourself repeatedly opening new tabs and splitting consoles every time you restart your machine? I made a shell script (and a json file) to set up Konsole exactly how I want it just by running a single command (also linked with a Desktop shortcut).

How To

First create a file called tab.layout.json and store it in $HOME.

{
    "Orientation": "Vertical",
    "Widgets": [
        {
            "SessionRestoreId": 1
        },
        {
            "SessionRestoreId": 0
        }
    ]
}

Then create another text file (shell script) konsole-splits.sh and put it where you want. I put it in ~/bin which I have configured as part of my $PATH for executing. Use chmod +x konsole-splits.sh to make it executable.

#!/bin/bash

# konsole-splits.sh

konsole --layout tab.layout.json --new-tab &
konsole --layout tab.layout.json --new-tab &
konsole --layout tab.layout.json --new-tab &
konsole --layout tab.layout.json --new-tab &

Now whenever you run konsole-splits.sh, it will open Konsole with 4 tabs, each tab with a horizontal split (one terminal on top of another one). You can customize the script and the json file to your liking. If Konsole is already running, it will add 4 new tabs each time.

There is an option for creating a tabs layout which accepts commands. If you don't need splits, this would be the proper way of working. The argument is --tabs-from-list
What would be ideal, is to be able to somehow make both work together. I tried adding the options that I get with --list-profile-properties to the JSON file, but they are ignored. And opening a tabs file and a layout opens the layout as one tab (or a series of them) and the tabs in the tabs file as extra, unsplit, tabs...