====== Monitoring Windows ======

''screen'' can monitor your windows, either for silence or activity, notifying
when the condition occurs.  This is useful for all sorts of things, including
waiting for a lengthy compile to finish or watching log files.

===== Basics =====

Use ''[[commands:monitor|C-a M]]'' to start monitoring a window for activity.  ''[[commands:silence|C-a _]]''
monitors for 30 seconds of silence.  Using the appropriate key combination
a second time will turn off monitoring.

===== Extras =====

There are a couple of configuration commands that can be used to tweak the
monitoring settings.  ''[[commands:silencewait]]'' will change the number of seconds of
silence that will trigger the monitor.  ''[[commands:activity]]'' sets the message that
screen shows when a monitored window has activity.  [//There doesn't seem
to be a way to set the silence message.  Is this correct?  <PMG>//]  The message
uses the standard [[man:string escapes]], as well as replacing '^G' with an
ASCII BEL (so the terminal will beep).

Setting the timout for silence monitoring affects all windows.  There's no
way to have different timeouts for different windows.

===== Keybindings =====

  * ''[[commands:monitor|C-a M]]'' - Start/stop monitoring window for activity.
  * ''[[commands:silence|C-a _]]'' - Start/stop monitoring window for inactivity.

===== Commands =====

  * ''[[commands:activity]]'' - Set message displayed by screen when a monitored window shows activity.
  * ''[[commands:defmonitor]]'' - Set the default monitoring status for new windows.
  * ''[[commands:defsilence]]'' - Set the default silence monitoring status for new windows.
  * ''[[commands:monitor]]'' - Set the monitoring status for the current window.
  * ''[[commands:silence]]'' - Set the silence monitoring status for the current window.
  * ''[[commands:silencewait]]'' - Set the silence timeout for all windows.

===== Examples =====

Change the activity message to include a timestamp and window title, as
well as beep.  In practice it will read something like "12:37 activity ->
7$ zsh":

<code>activity "%c activity -> %n%f %t^G"</code>