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Default Key Bindings
As mentioned, each screen command consists of a “C-a” followed by one other character. For your convenience, all commands that are bound to lower-case letters are also bound to their control character counterparts (with the exception of “C-a a”; see below), thus, “C-a c” as well as “C-a C-c” can be used to create a window. See section “Customization” for a description of the command.
The following table shows the default key bindings:
C-a ' | select | Prompt for a window name or number to switch to. |
C-a " | windowlist -b | Present a list of all windows for selection. |
C-a 0… C-a 9C-a - | select 0… select 9select - | Switch to window number 0-9, or to the blank window. |
C-a tab | focus | Switch the input focus to the next region. See also split, remove, only. |
C-a C-a | other | Toggle to the window displayed previously. Note that this binding defaults to the command character typed twice, unless overridden. For instance, if you use the option “-e]x”, this command becomes “]]”. |
C-a a | meta | Send the command character (C-a) to window. See escape command. |
C-a A | title | Allow the user to enter a name for the current window. |
C-a bC-a C-b | break | Send a break to window. |
C-a B | pow_break | Reopen the terminal line and send a break. |
C-a cC-a C-c | screen | Create a new window with a shell and switch to that window. |
C-a C | clear | Clear the screen. |
C-a dC-a C-d | detach | Detach screen from this terminal. |
C-a D D | pow_detach | Detach and logout. |
C-a fC-a C-f | flow | Toggle flow on, off or auto. |
C-a F | fit | Resize the window to the current region size. |
C-a C-g | vbell | Toggles screen's visual bell mode. |
C-a h | hardcopy | Write a hardcopy of the current window to the file “hardcopy.n”. |
C-a H | log | Begins/ends logging of the current window to the file “screenlog.n”. |
C-a iC-a C-i | info | Show info about this window. |
C-a kC-a C-k | kill | Destroy current window. |
C-a lC-a C-l | redisplay | Fully refresh current window. |
C-a L | login | Toggle this window's login slot. Available only if screen is configured to update the utmp database. |
C-a mC-a C-m | lastmsg | Repeat the last message displayed in the message line. |
C-a M | monitor | Toggles monitoring of the current window. |
C-a spaceC-a nC-a C-n | next | Switch to the next window. |
C-a N | number | Show the number (and title) of the current window. |
C-a backspaceC-a hC-a pC-a C-p | prev | Switch to the previous window (opposite of C-a n). |
C-a qC-a C-q | xon | Send a control-q to the current window. |
C-a Q | only | Delete all regions but the current one. See also split, remove, focus. |
C-a rC-a C-r | wrap | Toggle the current window's line-wrap setting (turn the current window's automatic margins on and off). |
C-a sC-a C-s | xoff | Send a control-s to the current window. |
C-a S | split | Split the current region horizontally into two new ones. See also only, remove, focus. |
C-a tC-a C-t | time | Show system information. |
C-a v | version | Display the version and compilation date. |
C-a C-v | digraph | Enter digraph. |
C-a wC-a C-w | windows | Show a list of windows. |
C-a W | width | Toggle 80/132 columns. |
C-a xC-a C-x | lockscreen | Lock this terminal. |
C-a X | remove | Kill the current region. See also split, only, focus. |
C-a zC-a C-z | suspend | Suspend screen. Your system must support BSD-style job-control. |
C-a Z | reset | Reset the virtual terminal to its “power-on” values. |
C-a . | dumptermcap | Write out a “.termcap” file. |
C-a ? | help | Show key bindings. |
C-a C-\ | quit | Kill all windows and terminate screen. |
C-a : | colon | Enter command line mode. |
C-a [C-a C-[C-a esc | copy | Enter copy/scrollback mode. |
C-a ] | paste . | Write the contents of the paste buffer to the stdin queue of the current window. |
C-a {C-a } | history | Copy and paste a previous (command) line. |
C-a > | writebuf | Write paste buffer to a file. |
C-a < | readbuf | Reads the screen-exchange file into the paste buffer. |
C-a = | removebuf | Removes the file used by C-a < and C-a >. |
C-a , | license | Shows where screen comes from, where it went to and why you can use it. |
C-a _ | silence | Start/stop monitoring the current window for inactivity. |
C-a | | split -v | Split the current region vertically into two new ones. |
C-a * | displays | Show a listing of all currently attached displays. |