It is tedious to browse through your linux screen windows, by typing “Ctrl a” + ” every-time you want to switch to another window. A better approach, that will save your time is to use multiple Tabs in the same window. You will remember the context and can quickly switch among the tabs.
So let us quickly get the tabs.
Screen Tabs Setup
Open a terminal and first install screen if screen is not already installed
nir@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install screen
nir@ubuntu:~$ which screen
/usr/bin/screen
Open your .screenrc file and add the following string and you are set.
nir@ubuntu:~$ cat ~/.screenrc
caption always "%{= kw}%-w%{= BW}%n %t%{-}%+w %-="
Note it will work for all new screen session you are creating
Test linux screen with multiple tabs
Let us create a new screen session called myShell
nir@ubuntu:~$ screen -S myShell
Once you are in, you can see already at the bottom
a tab is created named “0 bash”
Create couple more by pressing “Ctrl a” + “c”
You can see more tabs getting created.
To go from one tab to next
“Ctrl a” + “n”
To go from one tab to previous
“Ctrl a” + “p”
To rename a tab use
“Ctrl a” + “A”
(note “A” is in CAPS)
Here is a screenshot of what you will get after executing the above commands
To jump to any tabs you can use the number seen along with the tab
“Ctrl a” + n
where n can be 0,1,2 in the above example.