How to resize regions in Screen

A split Screen display can leave the shell, editor, or log view in the active region too cramped to read. Resizing regions changes the visible space assigned to the focused region while the windows shown in the other regions keep running.

Screen regions are display areas, not separate processes. The resize command adjusts the focused region, taking space from a neighboring region; in the plain top-and-bottom layout this changes rows, while in the plain side-by-side layout it changes columns.

Focus and split order control which border moves. Check the size first when the exact result matters, make one small adjustment, then run fit before checking with stty size or returning to a full-screen program.

1. Start from a display with at least two visible regions.

   C-a S

   The resize command only matters after the display has been split. Skip this key if the target layout already exists. If the new region is blank, focus it and create a window with C-a c before running shell commands there.

2. Move focus to the region that should change size.

   C-a Tab

   Repeat the focus key until the cursor is in the region that should gain or lose space.

3. Check the current region size when a before value is useful.

   $ stty size
   11 80

   The first number is rows and the second number is columns. Your values will depend on the terminal size and the current split layout.

4. Open the Screen command prompt from the focused region.

   C-a :

   Commands typed here run inside the current Screen session.

5. Adjust the focused region by a small amount.

   resize +5

   Use resize -5 if the focused region should lose space. Without -h or -v, Screen uses the local split direction: rows for a top-and-bottom split and columns for a side-by-side split.

6. Fit the active window to the resized region.

   C-a F

   The default fit binding asks Screen to resize the displayed window to the current region size.

7. Verify that the focused region reports the new terminal size.

   $ stty size
   16 80

   Compare the new value with the value recorded before the resize. In this top-and-bottom example, the focused region gained five rows while the column count stayed the same.

8. Use an explicit dimension when a mixed layout makes local resizing hard to predict.

   resize -v -5

   Use -v for height and -h for width. This example removes five rows from the focused region.

9. Make regions even again when manual sizing becomes hard to scan.

   resize -b =

   The -b option asks Screen to equalize both dimensions where the current layout supports it.