Hi all, I got some thoughts about screen scripting support and would like to share with you.
Rui -------- Forwarded Message -------- > From: Rui Guo <timmy...@mail.ustc.edu.cn> > To: ima...@gmail.com > Subject: Some thoughts about screen scripting support. > Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:03:27 +0800 > > Hi Sadrul, > > I've thought a bit more about the idea of screen scripting support. > > The current use cases demonstrated fall into two catalogs:Event > triggered handlers and user triggered actions. In both cases, we need to > provide a interface to let them query the status of screen and execute > actions on screen. The only difference would be the latter need a > triggering interface for the user to use. In summary, we need to define > a more complete set of events and possibly the interface too. There are > four kinds of object to manipulate with, in addition to the root object > screen, however they only provide limited functionalities. > > In addition to the above, I would like to show another kinds of use > case. Not sure whether you will like it. > > Screen some times is called as a window manager. However, for historic > reasons, the program running within screen does not interfere with > screen. They even not aware of the existence of screen. If they would, > some possibilities will show up. Imagining having a separate output > buffer for shell commands executed in vim, that may be possible if we > provide an robust interface for them. However, it's not likely for the > program itself to interface with screen, since they will have to run > outside screen. And this is where I think scripting can be taken into > account. It can act as a middleman for the two. > > However, this scheme complicates things a little. Here, the script, on > behalf of the client application, is no longer a slave to screen. They > may need to run in background and communicate with screen when > necessary. This requires the script and the screen can run > asynchronously. > > What do you think about this idea? Currently, the command switch -X can > be used to send command to a running screen session. The use case I > showed here is only a more powerful scheme of this. > > Looking forward to your reply. > > ps: Should I send a copy of this to screen-dev? > > Regards, > Rui
