Shell Command Line GNU Screen – How to Rename Current Window in GNU Screen via Shell Commands?

command linegnugnu-screenshell

I have an interactive shell (assume dash) running under a GNU screen session. Is it possible to rename the "current" window via commands issued to the interactive shell? If so, then how?

By contrast, if I wanted to accomplish the same thing via GNU screen keybindings, then I would type CTRL+a followed by A to bring up the Set window's title to: prompt.

Best Answer

You can run any screen command (the ones that are or can be bound to keys) with screen -X.

So:

screen -X title 'New title'

Would set the title of the current window, same as Ctrl+a, A or Ctrl+a, : titleEnter followed by the new title.

See info screen title, info screen options, info screen 'Command Index' for details.

Ctrl+a, ? will tell you what command is bound to each key.

To set the title of another window, see the at command.

Related Solutions

Bash – Showing GNU screen session name and window title in shell prompt

Screen supplies some environment variables (from screen(1) manpage):

STY              Alternate socket name.
WINDOW           Window number of a window (at creation time).

The "at creation time" means that if you renumber a window (using screen's number command), the shell will not be told about the change and $WINDOW will still be the same as the first window number.

You could use something like:

PS1='\u@\h(${STY}:${WINDOW}):\w$ '

How to rename a gnu screen session

There is a screen command to do this. From the manual:

Command: sessionname [name]

(none)

Rename the current session. Note that for screen -list the name shows up with the process-id prepended. If the argument name is omitted, the name of this session is displayed.

Caution: The $STY environment variable still reflects the old name. This may result in confusion. The default is constructed from the tty and host names.

To access the screen command line, use Prefix:, where Prefix is typically Ctrl-a.

So you will most likely have to do so: Ctrl-a:sessionname [name]

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash – Showing GNU screen session name and window title in shell prompt

How to rename a gnu screen session

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