Status line for text mode console

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:30:15 +0100, Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:10:02 -0700, Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu at freebsd.org> wrote:
>> Sounds like something screen(1) offers.  See sysutils/screen.
>
> Much too complicated. :-) I'm using screen on a daily basis to manage
> multiple SSH sessions (very comfortable tool), but for something that
> should run locally (a local terminal session) it doesn't seem to be
> the right tool.

That's right, but screen(1) is pretty easy to configure this way.  You
just have to add a `.screenrc' file with:

    caption always "%{= bf}%5n  %t (%H) %l%=%Y-%m-%d %c:%s "

This should produce a colored, blue 'hardstatus' line near the bottom of
the screen window, that displays something like this:

,-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| bash$
|
|
|    0  shell (kobe) 0.44 0.52 0.58                 2008-10-31  6:14:00
`-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FWIW, I regularly use screen(1) in console sessions too, because ssh
sessions to `other' OS types work much better with a terminal type of
`screen'.  Some Linux and Solaris systems do funny things when the
environment includes `TERM=cons25' :(