Re: New Screen capabilities using Screenwm

[Michael Schroeder]

On Sat, Oct 07, 2006 at 02:33:42PM -0700, Paul Kolano wrote:
> Just thought some of you might be interested in a new project I
> started on Sourceforge called Screenwm.  It's basically a single Perl
> executable and a set of key bindings that adds some new capabilities
> to Screen.  It is meant to work with Bill Pursell's excellent vertical
> split patch (although it also works without).

FYI: I'm just adding vertical split support to screen. Seems to
work fine, what's currently broken is the "resize" command.

> The major features are:
> 
> 1. Multiple region layouts within a single session
> 
> As a simple example, you might have one layout that has 2 horizontally
> split regions and another that has 2 vertically split regions.  With
> Screenwm, you can switch between them instantaneously using
> layout-specific versions of the next, prev, other, and select
> commands.  Layouts can be arbitrarily complex.
> 
> 2. Vi-like movement within complex layouts
> 
> When using vertical splits, it might take any number of focus up/down
> commands to reach a region that is right next to the current one.
> Screenwm has bindings for left/right movement as well as up/down
> movement that automatically calculate region boundaries and move
> directly to the region in the given direction with a single key press.
> 
> 3. Window associations by region
> 
> Essentially, each region is treated as if it has its own set of
> windows associated with it.  Thus, even though you might have 30
> windows in a given Screen session, the next, prev, and select commands
> will cycle through only the windows that are associated with the
> current region instead of all 30 of them.  I find this more natural
> than the default model, especially with vertical splits, as it is
> essentially equivalent to multiple xterms (or whatever) side by side
> with each running its own instance of Screen (but with no need to use
> the mouse! :) ).
> 
> 4. Control of remote/embedded sessions using standard key bindings
> 
> Since using different escape keys for remote Screen sessions is a
> pain, this allows windows to be tagged as a remote/embedded session,
> after which commands sent to the local session will be forwarded on
> automatically when appropriate.  For example, when working in a tagged
> window, and you want to create a new window in the remote session, you
> just use ^ac as normal instead of ^aac.  You can customize the
> behavior to forward on only the commands that you want forwarded.
> Basically, this feature allows you to treat multiple local and remote
> Screen sessions as a single seamlessly integrated session.
> 
> Anyway, check it out if you're interested at:
> 
>    http://sourceforge.net/projects/screenwm

Sounds nice, I'll have a look at it.

Cheers,
  Michael.

-- 
Michael Schroeder           address@hidden
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