Nix should update window title for long running operations #1

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nix runs can often take a long time particularly when derivations are being built from source, output streams can be very long and it's not easy to see what derivations is currently being worked on with so much output moving quickly.

Proposed solution

The proposed solution would be to have nix send terminal title updates... In bash this can be done with a function such as this:

function title() {
  echo -ne "\e]0;"
  echo -n "$@"
  echo -ne "\a"
}
title "new window title value"

Nix should update the title with what "phase" it is doing and then update for each derivation it needs to build from source.

It should do so in the format of "nix: (what it's doing)"

i.e. a run's title changes might look like this:

• nix: unpacking 1 channels
• nix: building the system configuration...
• nix: building: check-sshd-config ...
  (^- when nix would typically print "building '/nix/store/m71hvm1ls8jwxw8kssww6v8j41jrj0jq-check-sshd-config.drv'...", we could shorten it to remove /nix/store/, the hash and the .drv suffix)
• nix: building: ensure-all-wrappers-paths-exist ...
  (^- similarly for "building '/nix/store/yvm4w0izw1ham0w1p1ab9pvi1yqzd41b-ensure-all-wrappers-paths-exist.drv'...")
• nix: done
  or
• nix: error (status: 1)

Think hard about the best approach to make a elegant flexible minimal code solution.

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