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Key Binding

You may disagree with some of the default bindings (I know I do). The bind command allows you to redefine them to suit your preferences.

The bind command

(none)
Bind a command to a key. The key argument is either a single character, a two-character sequence of the form `^x' (meaning C-x), a backslash followed by an octal number (specifying the ASCII code of the character), or a backslash followed by a second character, such as `\^' or `\\'. The argument can also be quoted, if you like. If no further argument is given, any previously established binding for this key is removed. The command argument can be any command (see section Command Index).

By default, most suitable commands are bound to one or more keys (see section Default Key Bindings; for instance, the command to create a new window is bound to C-c and c. The bind command can be used to redefine the key bindings and to define new bindings.

Examples of the bind command

bind ' ' windows
bind ^f screen telnet foobar
bind \033 screen -ln -t root -h 1000 9 su

would bind the space key to the command that displays a list of windows (so that the command usually invoked by C-a C-w would also be available as C-a space), bind C-f to the command "create a window with a TELNET connection to foobar", and bind ESC to the command that creates an non-login window with title `root' in slot #9, with a super-user shell and a scrollbackbuffer of 1000 lines.

Command Character

Command: escape xy

(none)
Set the command character to x and the character generating a literal command character to y (just like with the `-e' option). Each argument is either a single character, a two-character sequence of the form `^x' (meaning C-x), a backslash followed by an octal number (specifying the ASCII code of the character), or a backslash followed by a second character, such as `\^' or `\\'. The default is `^Aa', but `"' is recommended by one of the authors.

Command: meta

(C-a a)
Send the command character (C-a) to the process in the current window. The keystroke for this command is the second parameter to the `-e' command line switch (see section Invoking Screen), or the escape .screenrc directive.

Help

(C-a ?)
Displays a help screen showing you all the key bindings. The first pages list all the internal commands followed by their bindings. Subsequent pages will display the custom commands, one command per key. Press space when you're done reading each page, or return to exit early. All other characters are ignored, except for the command character, which will exit the help display and begin a command. See section Default Key Bindings.

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