[Alpine-info] changing Alpine's window's title/header (under Gnome Terminal)

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via Alpine-info]

> From: D. Hugh Redelmeier via Alpine-info <alpine-info at u.washington.edu>

> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 09:50:43 -0400 (EDT)




> When I run Alpine in a Gnome terminal, it puts "alpine" in the window's 

> header.  This is something alpine is actively doing since the default 

> terminal header (maintained by BASH) has user at host:directory.


I know suspect that this is done by the system-wide bash .profile.
But it takes too much spelunking to figure that out.  It runs all
these and more"
$ ls -l /etc/profile.d/*.sh /etc/profile.d/sh.local
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root   57 Jan  4 19:00 /etc/profile.d/70-systemd-shell-extra.sh -> ../../usr/lib/systemd/profile.d/70-systemd-shell-extra.sh
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root   57 Jan  4 19:00 /etc/profile.d/80-systemd-osc-context.sh -> ../../usr/lib/systemd/profile.d/80-systemd-osc-context.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 6037 Jul 24  2025 /etc/profile.d/bash-color-prompt.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  747 Jul 22  2025 /etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  205 Jul 23  2025 /etc/profile.d/colorgrep.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1431 Jan 15 19:00 /etc/profile.d/colorls.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  205 Nov 22 19:00 /etc/profile.d/colorxzgrep.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  220 Jul 23  2025 /etc/profile.d/colorzgrep.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  923 Oct 27 20:00 /etc/profile.d/debuginfod.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  873 Jan 20 19:00 /etc/profile.d/flatpak.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  757 Aug 28  2019 /etc/profile.d/gawk.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  241 Mar  3  2025 /etc/profile.d/gmpopenh264.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root   22 Jan 27 19:00 /etc/profile.d/gnupg2.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3187 Jul 24  2025 /etc/profile.d/lang.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  253 Jul 23  2025 /etc/profile.d/less.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  120 Jul 23  2025 /etc/profile.d/nano-default-editor.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1351 Jan 22 19:00 /etc/profile.d/PackageKit.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root   81 Jul 24  2025 /etc/profile.d/sh.local
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3675 Sep 16 20:00 /etc/profile.d/toolbox.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 5062 Jan 21 19:00 /etc/profile.d/vte.sh
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  465 Jul 24  2025 /etc/profile.d/which2.sh


> It turns out that I sometimes run alpine on different hosts at the 

> same time.  The window header doesn't allow me to tell which alpine is in 

> which window.

> 

> Is there a way to customize what Alpine sets the window header to?

> I searched for "alpine" in the config screen and none of the matches 

> seemed to be for window headers.


I figured out a stupid trick to do this:
	ln -s /usr/bin/alpine bin/distinct-name-for-alpine

>From then on, I can fire up alpine with the command

"distinct-name-for-alpine" and get that in the terminal window header.