Keyboard driven applications to make your life easier

[Windozer]

A couple of screen questions:

Is there a way to get screento display which screen is actually active in the term., say in the prompt or term. title bar?
(instead of using your brain, ^c-a w, or screens -list)

Also - and this goes way back to termcap - trying to toggle from 80 to 132 col. mode (^c-a W) yields:
'your termcap does not specify how to change your terminals width to 80 [or 132]"

Screen is emulating VT100, but I've not edited termcap before (and am astonished that I remember what termcap is -- that was 30 years ago!)  is it worth the trouble?

thanks
- H

[rbistolfi]

A couple of screen questions:

Is there a way to get screento display which screen is actually active in the term., say in the prompt or term. title bar?
(instead of using your brain, ^c-a w, or screens -list)

Yes, you need a hardstatus line in your .screenrc
You can try this lines from mine:

Code:

hardstatus on
hardstatus alwayslastline "%{=b kW}[ %{= Y}$USER @ %H %{b W}][%= %{= kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{b W}][%{= Y} %m/%d/%y %{Y}%C %{b W}]"

Also - and this goes way back to termcap - trying to toggle from 80 to 132 col. mode (^c-a W) yields:
'your termcap does not specify how to change your terminals width to 80 [or 132]"

Screen is emulating VT100, but I've not edited termcap before (and am astonished that I remember what termcap is -- that was 30 years ago!)  is it worth the trouble?

thanks
- H

Which terminal emulator are you using?

Check this out:

Q: Screen gets the terminal size wrong and messes up.
A:    Before you start screen: Check with 'stty -a' what the terminal driver thinks about rows and columns. Check the environment variables LINES and COLUMNS. Then from within screen check with the info command (CTRL-A i) what size screen thinks your terminal is. If correcting tty driver setting and environment variables does not help, look up the terminal capability definition. First the TERMCAP environment variable. If this is not set, look up the terminals name as defined in the environment variable TERM in /etc/termcap or in the terminfo database with untic or infocmp. There may be :li=...: and :co=...: or even :ll=...: entries (cols#... and lines#... when it's terminfo) defined incorrectly. Either construct your own TERMCAP environment variables with correct settings, use screens terminfo/termcap command in your .screenrc file or have the database corrected by the system administrator.

HTH

[Windozer]

You can try this lines from mine:

Code:

hardstatus on
hardstatus alwayslastline "%{=b kW}[ %{= Y}$USER @ %H %{b W}][%= %{= kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{b W}][%{= Y} %m/%d/%y %{Y}%C %{b W}]"

Thanks,  Rodrigo --- That works great!

Man, that 'hardstatus' line could win the 'hard readability' prize!  Did you figure that out?

Seems like I misunderstand what '^c-a W' does - thought it toggled between 80 and 132, but it doesn't ... all items in that FAQ check out or are set.
I'm using both x term 0.2.8.3 and urxvt, both behave similar... so I guess I'll just have to grab that nasty little mousy by the tail and drag the windows ( )

thanks again for the assist,
- H

[rbistolfi]

Man, that 'hardstatus' line could win the 'hard readability' prize!  Did you figure that out?

No, I think nobody does. Someone made one 10 years ago and it is being passed all over the internet.
When I have to add or remove something, I go through the man page. With patience, you can reconstruct the meaning of the code, but I never did it completely. I just look for the part I care at the moment.

I'm using both x term 0.2.8.3 and urxvt, both behave similar... so I guess I'll just have to grab that nasty little mousy by the tail and drag the windows ( )

I have that problems with some programs like htop. As you noted when you resize the terminal you force screen to redraw itself and you see characters again. I am pretty sure this have to do with the termcap definition. One thing you can do is search the net for termcaps definitions for your terminal and try different ones. Some people use a diferent TERM variable (default is set to "screen"), but I think we should do that, it may generate several problems.

HTH