9.9 Layout

Using regions, and perhaps a large enough terminal, you can give screen more of a desktop feel. By being able to split regions horizontally or vertically, you can take advantage of the lesser used spaces of your terminal. The catch to these splits has been that they’re not kept between screen detachments and reattachments.

Layouts will help organize your regions. You can create one layout of four horizontal regions and then create a separate layout of regions in a two by two array. The regions could contain the same windows, but they don’t have to. You can easily switch between layouts and keep them between detachments and reattachments.

Note that there are several subcommands to layout.

Command: layout new [title]

(none)
Create a new layout. The screen will change to one whole region and be switched to the blank window. From here, you build the regions and the windows they show as you desire. The new layout will be numbered with the smallest available integer, starting with zero. You can optionally give a title to your new layout. Otherwise, it will have a default title of layout. You can always change the title later by using the command layout title.

Command: layout remove [n|title]

(none)
Remove, or in other words, delete the specified layout. Either the number or the title can be specified. Without either specification, screen will remove the current layout.

Removing a layout does not affect your set windows or regions.

Command: layout next

(none)
Switch to the next layout available

Command: layout prev

(none)
Switch to the previous layout available

Command: layout select [n|title]

(none)
Select the desired layout. Either the number or the title can be specified. Without either specification, screen will prompt and ask which screen is desired. To see which layouts are available, use the layout show command.

Command: layout show

(none)
List on the message line the number(s) and title(s) of the available layout(s). The current layout is flagged.

Command: layout title [title]

(none)
Change or display the title of the current layout. A string given will be used to name the layout. Without any options, the current title and number is displayed on the message line.

Command: layout number [n]

(none)
Change or display the number of the current layout. An integer given will be used to number the layout. Without any options, the current number and title is displayed on the message line.

Command: layout attach [title|:last]

(none)
Change or display which layout to reattach back to. The default is :last, which tells screen to reattach back to the last used layout just before detachment. By supplying a title, You can instruct screen to reattach to a particular layout regardless which one was used at the time of detachment. Without any options, the layout to reattach to will be shown in the message line.

Command: layout save [n|title]

(none)
Remember the current arrangement of regions. When used, screen will remember the arrangement of vertically and horizontally split regions. This arrangement is restored when a screen session is reattached or switched back from a different layout. If the session ends or the screen process dies, the layout arrangements are lost. The layout dump command should help in this siutation. If a number or title is supplied, screen will remember the arrangement of that particular layout. Without any options, screen will remember the current layout.

Saving your regions can be done automatically by using the layout autosave command.

Command: layout autosave [on|off]

(none)
Change or display the status of automatically saving layouts. The default is on, meaning when screen is detached or changed to a different layout, the arrangement of regions and windows will be remembered at the time of change and restored upon return. If autosave is set to off, that arrangement will only be restored to either to the last manual save, using layout save, or to when the layout was first created, to a single region with a single window. Without either an on or an off, the current status is displayed on the message line.

Command: layout dump [filename]

(none)
Write to a file the order of splits made in the current layout. This is useful to recreate the order of your regions used in your current layout. Only the current layout is recorded. While the order of the regions are recorded, the sizes of those regions and which windows correspond to which regions are not. If no filename is specified, the default is layout-dump, saved in the directory that the screen process was started in. If the file already exists, layout dump will append to that file. As an example:

layout dump /home/user/.screenrc

will save or append the layout to the user’s .screenrc file.