Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 02:01:59 +0000 (UTC)
   From: Miciah Dashiel Butler Masters <gcgs-gnu-screen@m.gmane.org>
Subject: Re: HOWTO: emulate vim's :help in a screen window

In article <20030406193514.4b43c6ba.mramos@adinet.com.uy>, Marcelo Ramos wrote:
> Something interesting and useful developed with Miciah's help a few minutes
> ago in the #screen channel (irc.debian.org):
> 
> 1) Create a shell script "showman": 
> 
>       echo -n "What manpage?"; read X; man $X; screen -X eval 'focus bottom' remove 
> 
> 2) Put the following in your.screenrc: 
> 
>       bindkey "^B" eval split "focus bottom" "screen /path/to/showman" 
> 
> 3) Now press ^B and enjoy :-)
> 
> (^B or the key you prefer)

You inspired to write a couple of scripts to generalise this process:

screen-run-program-in-region:
    #!/bin/sh
    
    eval "$*"
    echo -n Press any key to close this region...
    read throwaway_variable
    screen -X eval 'focus bottom' remove

screen-open-region-with-program:
    #!/bin/sh
    
    screen -X eval \
        "focus bottom" \
        split \
        "focus bottom" \
        "screen screen-run-program-in-region $*"

Note that enabling zombie-mode will interfere with this script's
operation -- to kill the zombie window, screen-run-program-in-region
would need to also send Screen the 'kill' command. Unfortunately, if you
_disable_ zombie-mode then the 'kill' command would probably kill a
program that you _don't_ want killed.  This is why we need a per-window
zombie-setting (*nudge* *nudge*). A way to silence the kill command
would also be nice.

BTW, I know that 'echo -n' is not portable. Please forgive me. You can
feel free to remove the '-n'.

 -- Miciah <miciah@myrealbox.com>