Try out a sample screen session

You start the whole thing by typing screen at shell prompt from "xterm" or "Terminal" or whatever terminal emulator the bundler drops on your desktop :-)

Most versions give an intro screen. But maybe that's turned off, or you want to check later if screen is running. Just type echo $TERM and see if you get "screen" as the terminal type.

For Example:            Note: If you want to try this as you read along, you might want to shrink this window horzontally to fit your trial terminal session alongside this window

lent:~ lent$ echo $TERM
screen
lent:~ lent$

Note that if you type Control-A and colon, you can type in the full command name.

An interesting sequence to type is:
Control-A   and   :   and   split   and   Enter
We create a new "region", but you might call think to call it a window :-)

Control-A   and   :   and   focus down   and   Enter
We move to the new "region"

Control-A   and   :   and   screen   and   Enter
Looky here, a new virtual terminal, try typing tty to see what the pseudo-terminal device is called

You might try a nice UNIX command, like ls -latr now, to list your files with most recently modified last.

Now to get funkier :-)

Control-A   and   :   and   focus top   and   Enter
Try getting the free disk space in this window, by typing df or df -H
Control-A   and   :   and   select 1   and   Enter
The focus top command, followed by select 1, moved the cursor to the top region, and selected session one. Which yields the same thing in the top window as the bottom window.

Cool! Duplicate output!

Note that your first session is still hanging out waiting for you and you can return to it by typing :

As you type the next command, notice that both regions/windows show the command being typed.
Control-A   and   :   and   select 0   and   Enter

To quit the whole thing (screen), killing all the little virtual terminals:

Nice instructions on screen
Cached copy
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(Anonymous) 2004-09-08 00:44 (link)

screen can do this too (and much more, but that goes without saying)...

In screen terminology these two halves, upper and lower, are called "regions" (as opposed to "windows", which are hidden behind one another and are what most people using screen are used to), and I'll be using that terminology below...

To use regions, after you've started screen, just type:

"CONTROL-a S" (hold down the control key and hit the "a" key, then let go of the control key and hit capital "S")

That will split the screen in two, just like splitvt. To move your cursor down to the newly created region type:

"CONTROL-a TAB" (hold down the control key and hit the "a" key, then let go of the control key and hit the TAB key)

Once your cursor is in the new region you can use it just like you normally use screen (ie. type "CONTROL-a c" to create a new window, "CONTROL-a n" to go to the next window or "CONTROL-a p" to go to the previous window, etc...).

Finally, you can make screen use just one region again by typing:

"CONTROL-a Q" (that's the capital letter "Q")

NOTE: If you ever type "CONTROL-a s" (lowercase "s") by mistake and suspend your shell, just type "CONTROL-a q" to unsuspend it.

All these keys can be remapped, by the way, if you feel more comfortable using a different set of keystrokes to do what you want to do. Just search screen's man page for "bind".
Note on remapping from Chris Lent: Don't even think about remapping the keys. Unless you are one of those people who drags customizations from machine to machine to machine. Also if you remap the keys how are you going to help someone else? You see, that is why vi editor users are happy, gregarious and have many friends, where as emacs users are scary loners :-)

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Comment: To probe further, lookup the :detach command, but don't blame me if you litter your machine with detached processes -)
GNU_screen_command.html