R – Unable to understand two lines in .screenrc

gnu-screen

I do not know how you can see the effects of following lines in your screen

bind ^g  screen -t 'Google' links www.google.com

bind G screen -t 'Google'    sudo -u insec links www.google.com

I tried unsuccessfully to press Ctrl-g at a word in a scrollback mode.
I also tried to search clickable words unsuccessfully in my manuals by

man man

How can you see the effects of the lines?

Best Solution

To try the bind ^g line, press Ctrl-A Ctrl-G.

To try the bind G line, press Ctrl-A Shift-G.

All those key bindings work inside screen if the bind lines are in $HOME/.screenrc and you have started screen after saving $HOME/.screenrc. To see if you have screen running, press Ctrl-A V (without shift). This will show you (in reverse color) the version number of screen at the bottom row in the window. If you don't get this information, you have to start screen first, by typing screen and pressing Enter.

The get more information about defining custom key bindings in GNU screen, please read the entry for bind in the CUSTOMIZATION section of the man page of screen.

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I believe you can just add a line like this to your ~/.screenrc:

termcapinfo xterm* ti@:te@

Where "xterm*" is a glob match of your current TERM. To confirm it works, ^A^D to detach from your screen, then screen -d -r to reattach, then ls a few times, and try to scroll back. It works for me.

What is this magic? Well, let's consult the manual pages.

screen(1) says:

termcapinfo term terminal-tweaks [window-tweaks]
  [..]
  The first argument specifies which terminal(s) should be affected by this
  definition. You can specify multiple terminal names by separating them with
  `|'s. Use `*' to match all terminals and `vt*' to match all terminals that
  begin with "vt".
  [..]
  Some examples:

      termcap xterm*  LP:hs@

  Informs screen that all terminals that begin with `xterm' have firm
  auto-margins that allow the last position on the screen to be updated (LP),
  but they don't really have a status line (no 'hs' -  append  `@'  to turn
  entries off).  Note that we assume `LP' for all terminal names that start
  with "vt", but only if you don't specify a termcap command for that terminal.

From termcap(5):

String capabilities
    [..]
    te   End program that uses cursor motion
    ti   Begin program that uses cursor motion

Macos – Unable to use Screen efficiently in Mac’s Terminal

In screenrc:

# Make xterm scrolling work properly with screen.
termcapinfo xterm-256color|xterm-color|xterm|xterms|xs|rxvt ti@:te@

Works for Terminal.app too.

Best Solution

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Using the scrollwheel in GNU screen

Macos – Unable to use Screen efficiently in Mac’s Terminal

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