Byobu-is-great
Mon 18 April 2016I recently switched from good 'ol GNU Screen to the more flexible Byobu. Nice, versatile and handy, but also clumsy in the beginning beacuse I have to unlearn all my standard keystrokes to do stuff and learn new ones. Here's a list to refer to when I'm stuck.
KEYBINDINGS
byobu keybindings can be user defined in /usr/share/byobu/keybindings/ (or within .screenrc if byobu-export was used).
The common key bindings are:
Key | Action |
---|---|
F2 | Create a new window |
F3 | Move to previous window |
F4 | Move to next window |
F5 | Reload profile |
F6 | Detach from this session |
F7 | Enter copy/scrollback mode |
F8 | Re-title a window |
F9 | Configuration Menu |
F12 | Lock this terminal |
shift-F2 | Split the screen horizontally |
ctrl-F2 | Split the screen vertically |
shift-F3 | Shift the focus to the previous split region |
shift-F4 | Shift the focus to the next split region |
shift-F5 | Join all splits |
ctrl-F6 | Remove this split |
ctrl-F5 | Reconnect GPG and SSH sockets |
shift-F6 | Detach, but do not logout |
alt-pgup | Enter scrollback mode |
alt-pgdn | Enter scrollback mode |
Ctrl-a $ | show detailed status |
Ctrl-a R | Reload profile |
Ctrl-a ! | Toggle key bindings on and off |
Ctrl-a k | Kill the current window |
Ctrl-a ~ | Save the current window's scrollback buffer |
SCROLLBACK, COPY, PASTE MODES
Each window in Byobu has up to 10,000 lines of scrollback history, which you can enter and navigate using the alt-pgup and alt-pgdn keys.Exit scrollback mode by hitting enter.
You can also easily copy and paste text from scrollback mode. To do so, enter scrollback using alt-pgup or alt-pgdn, press the spacebar to start highlighting text, use up/down/left/right/pgup/pgdn to select the text, and press enter to copy the text. You can then paste the text using alt-insert or ctrl-a-].