17. The Message Line

screen displays informational messages and other diagnostics in a message line at the bottom of the screen. If your terminal has a status line defined in its termcap, screen will use this for displaying its messages, otherwise the last line of the screen will be temporarily overwritten and output will be momentarily interrupted. The message line is automatically removed after a few seconds delay, but it can also be removed early (on terminals without a status line) by beginning to type.

17.1 Using the message line from your program

echo "^Hello world from window $WINDOW\"

where `' is ASCII ESC and `^' is a literal caret or up-arrow.

17.2 Hardware Status Line

Command: hardstatus [state]

Command: hardstatus [always]lastline|message|ignore [string]

Command: hardstatus string [string]

(none)
This command configures the use and emulation of the terminal's hardstatus line. The first form toggles whether screen will use the hardware status line to display messages. If the flag is set to `off', these messages are overlaid in reverse video mode at the display line. The default setting is `on'.

The second form tells screen what to do if the terminal doesn't have a hardstatus line (i.e. the termcap/terminfo capabilities "hs", "ts", "fs" and "ds" are not set). If the type lastline is used, screen will reserve the last line of the display for the hardstatus. message uses screen's message mechanism and ignore tells screen never to display the hardstatus. If you prepend the word always to the type (e.g., alwayslastline), screen will use the type even if the terminal supports a hardstatus line.

The third form specifies the contents of the hardstatus line. %h is used as default string, i.e. the stored hardstatus of the current window (settable via `ESC]0;^G' or `ESC_\\') is displayed. You can customize this to any string you like including string escapes (see section 21. String Escapes). If you leave out the argument string, the current string is displayed.

You can mix the second and third form by providing the string as additional argument.

17.3 Display Last Message

Command: lastmsg

(C-a m, C-a C-m)
Repeat the last message displayed in the message line. Useful if you're typing when a message appears, because (unless your terminal has a hardware status line) the message goes away when you press a key.

17.4 Message Wait

Command: msgminwait sec

(none)
Defines the time screen delays a new message when another is currently displayed. Defaults to 1 second.

Command: msgwait sec

(none)
Defines the time a message is displayed, if screen is not disturbed by other activity. Defaults to 5 seconds.