— Command: hardstatus [state]
— Command: hardstatus [always]lastline|message|ignore [string]
— Command: hardstatus string [string]

(none)
This command configures the use and emulation of the terminal's hardstatus line. The first form toggles whether screen will use the hardware status line to display messages. If the flag is set to ‘off’, these messages are overlaid in reverse video mode at the display line. The default setting is ‘on’.

The second form tells screen what to do if the terminal doesn't have a hardstatus line (i.e. the termcap/terminfo capabilities "hs", "ts", "fs" and "ds" are not set). If the type lastline is used, screen will reserve the last line of the display for the hardstatus. message uses screen's message mechanism and ignore tells screen never to display the hardstatus. If you prepend the word always to the type (e.g., alwayslastline), screen will use the type even if the terminal supports a hardstatus line.

The third form specifies the contents of the hardstatus line. %h is used as default string, i.e., the stored hardstatus of the current window (settable via ‘ESC]0;^G’ or ‘ESC_\\’) is displayed. You can customize this to any string you like including string escapes (see String Escapes). If you leave out the argument string, the current string is displayed.

You can mix the second and third form by providing the string as additional argument.