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.

• Privacy Message: Using the message line from your program.
• Hardware Status Line: Use the terminal's hardware status line.
• Last Message: Redisplay the last message.
• Message Wait: Control how long messages are displayed.

Using the message line from your program

The message line facility can be used by an application running in the current window by means of the ANSI Privacy message control sequence. For instance, from within the shell, try something like:

echo "<ESC>^Hello world from window $WINDOW<ESC>\"

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

Hardware Status Line

Command: hardstatus [state]

(none)
Toggles the use of the terminal's hardware status line. If `on', screen will use this facility to display one line messages. Otherwise these messages are overlayed in reverse video mode at the display line. Note that the hardstatus feature can only be used if the termcap/terminfo capabilities "hs", "ts", "fs" and "ds" are set properly. Default is `on' whenever the "hs" capability is present.

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.

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.