Prevent Bell Flash in GNU Screen with PuTTY

gnu-screenputty

A former coworker configured screen for me and I just found out I could change this, but I don't know what the setting is supposed to be and the man page is a little vague.

I've got this in my .screenrc

# no annoying audible bell, please
vbell on

I don't have a vbell msg defined, but the man page says the default vbell msg is "Wuff Wuff", I've never seen that particular message.

What I do see is a big annoying full screen flash every time I hit tab when a file doesn't exist (and this is starting to get on my nerves). It's better than a ding, but I'd rather have no indication than an annoying indication.

So, is there any way to completely disable the vbell without defacto enabling the real bell?

(Note, if you know this is just a putty question, I can close an ask on SuperUser, I saw the "bell" screen in the Putty setup which had some stuff that was already disabled for flashing – and it doesn't flash outside of screen)

Best Answer

You can do what you want in a terminal-independent way using just your .screenrc:

vbell on
vbell_msg ''
termcapinfo *  vb=:

The settings are:

  • first line (you already did this)
  • second line cancels the Wuff, Wuff!
  • third line sets the flash to an empty string

Note that the trailing colon (:) is needed for the termcap syntax used by screen.

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