* Frank Terbeck <bts@bts.grml.org> [20090407 02:12]:

> > To sum up, I believe the important setting is the last, so-called,
> > autorefresh. Hence `backtick 1 0 60' should suffice for our needs.

> Well, believing is not knowing.
> Are there any news on this? Did someone ask the screen-devs if the
> manual isn't clear enough?

The manual nowadays says:

| backtick id lifespan autorefresh cmd args...
| [...]
| Program the backtick command with the numerical id id.  The output
| of such a command is used for substitution of the "%‘" string
| escape. The specified lifespan is the number  of seconds the output
| is considered valid. After this time, the command is run again if a
| corresponding string escape is encountered. The autorefresh parame‐
| ter triggers an automatic refresh for caption and hardstatus strings
| after the specified number of seconds. Only the last line of output
| is used for substitution. If both the lifespan and the autorefresh
| parameters are zero, the backtick program is expected to stay in the
| background and generate output once in a while.  In this case, the
| command is executed right away and screen stores the last line of
| output. If a new line gets printed screen will automatically refresh
| the hardstatus or the captions.

Though I'm still not 100% sure what we really want for cpu-screen +
ip-screen. ;)

Well, the current setting works:

% grep backtick /etc/grml/screenrc
  backtick 1 0 60   /usr/bin/cpu-screen
  backtick 2 0 60   /usr/bin/ip-screen

- though I'm not sure whether it's the optimum in regards to "be
updated as often as useful but don't waste ressources on the other
hand".

Any further comments?

regards,
-mika-