GNU Screen 5.0 released with rewritten authentication, new commands, and more

Alexander Naumov has announced the release of version 5.0 of GNU Screen, a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes, typically interactive shells.

The new version 5.0 introduces a complete rewrite of the authentication mechanism, adding enhanced security measures. It also includes new escape sequences: %T to display the current tty for a window, and %O to show the number of currently open windows. Additionally, the update replaces UTF-8 hard-coded tables with wcwidth() for better character width handling.

Various new commands have been added in this release. The auth command now provides password protection, status shows the status window by default in any screen corner, truecolor enables true color 24bit support, and multiinput allows input to multiple windows simultaneously.

Conversely, several commands have been removed, including time, debug, password, maxwin, and nethack. Version 5.0 also addresses various issues, such as indefinite ESC keypress buffering in screen buffers, crashes post-zmodem transfer, and a double -U issue.