Scream - User Guide

Overview

Scream is a comprehensive terminal-based management tool for GNU Screen sessions. It combines multiple screen management functions into a single, easy-to-use interface, eliminating the need for multiple bash scripts and configuration files.

Features

• Browse Screen Sessions: View and connect to existing screen sessions with keyboard navigation
• Create New Sessions: Quickly create named screen sessions
• Kill Sessions: Terminate screen sessions easily
• Project Templates: Create multiple related screen sessions at once using templates
• Color-coded Interface: Visual differentiation between attached and detached sessions

Installation

Requirements

• C compiler (GCC recommended)
• ncurses development library
• GNU Screen

Compiling

1. Save the source code as scream.c
2. Compile the program:

   gcc -o scream scream.c -lncurses

3. Make it executable:

   chmod +x scream

4. Optional: Move to a directory in your PATH:

   sudo cp scream /usr/local/bin/

Usage

Run the program:

./scream

Main Menu

The main menu offers the following options:

1. Browse Screen Sessions (b): View and connect to existing screen sessions
2. Create New Screen (c): Start a new named screen session
3. Kill Screen Session (k): Terminate a screen session
4. Project Templates (p): Create multiple sessions from a template
5. Help (h or ?): Display help information

Press 'q' to quit the application.

Navigation

• UP/DOWN arrows: Move through lists
• ENTER: Select or activate an item
• ESC or q: Return to the previous menu
• r: Refresh the screen list (in browse or kill modes)

Project Templates

The program comes with several built-in project templates:

1. web-app: Creates db, api, and frontend screens
2. data-science: Creates jupyter, data-processor, and visualization screens
3. microservices: Creates auth-service, api-gateway, user-service, notification-service, and logging-service screens
4. devops: Creates monitoring, build-server, staging, and deployment screens

When you select a project template and press Enter, Scream creates all the associated screen sessions with the naming pattern project-name_component-name.

Customization

Adding Custom Project Templates

Currently, project templates are defined in the load_projects() function in the source code. To add your own templates:

1. Edit the source code
2. Add new templates to the load_projects() function
3. Recompile the program

Future versions may support loading project templates from a configuration file.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues:

• Make sure GNU Screen is installed and functioning
• Verify that your terminal supports color
• Check that you have sufficient permissions to create and manage screen sessions
• Try running with sudo if you get permission errors

Technical Details

The program uses the ncurses library for the terminal interface and executes screen commands using system calls. It parses the output of screen -list to display information about existing sessions.

Key Commands Used

• screen -list: List all screen sessions
• screen -r [id]: Resume a detached screen session
• screen -dmS [name]: Create a new detached screen session
• screen -S [id] -X quit: Terminate a screen session