It has been two years since I switched to linux from windows. And ever since the first day, I liked linux and liking linux more day by day. I use mainly vi to edit files (especially program files) on the terminal. Sometimes, I feel the need of several terminals. Present linux desktops provide tab based terminal interface which served my need for a while. But switching between the tabs takes times and not that convenient. I wasn't satisfied with it. I was hoping for some tools to give me an interface like vi where I can split to multiple windows, hide windows, switch between windows easily. And it would be very good to be able to make sessions and use them as I use buffers in vi. Guess what, I just found that tool of my dream. Its the "GNU screen". Its really amazing. It gave me everything that I wanted for. Here are some of the features of screen.
- Create multiple sessions, switch between the session
- Split the window into several windows, switch between the windows
- Copy/paste region of text on the screen without using mouse. I couldn't do it on conventional terminal.
- Detach session and attach the session again. In this way you can save your session and use it in later time. Its like the vncserver.
- And many more.....
One problem I had with the screen is its default escape keystroke which is Ctrl-A. I use Ctrl-A a lot to move to the beginning of a line in command line and emacs. I need this key stroke very much. But, screen is customizable and you can remap the keystrokes. So, I mapped the escape command to Ctrl-U. I did this by adding the following line in the .screenrc file.
escape ^Uu
Next, I wanted to use the j,k keys to move between the windows and did this by adding the following lines.
bind j focus down
bind k focus up
bind t focus top
bind b focus bottom
I wish to write a lot about the screen but because of my shortage of time, I would like to refer to the following site.
http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
