NAME

       splitvt - run two shells in a split window

SYNOPSIS

       splitvt [options] [shell]

OPTIONS

       -upper command
              Runs 'command' in the upper window

       -lower command
              Runs 'command' in the lower window

       -bottom
              Stats with the focus in the bottom window

       -s numlines
              Sets  'numlines'  to  the  number of lines in the top window.  This number will be modified if the
              screen isn't big enough to handle the full size.

       -t title
              Sets an xterm title bar to 'title'

       -login Runs the programs under each window as though they were login shells.  This is useful to have  csh
              source it's .login file, bash source .profile, etc.

       -nologin
              Overrides any "set login on" statement in the startup file.

       -rcfile file
              Loads 'file' as the startup file instead of ~/.splitvtrc.

       -norc  Suppresses loading your ~/.splitvtrc

       -f     Allow setting the height of either the top or the bottom window to less than 3 lines.

       -v     Print out the version number of splitvt

DESCRIPTION

       This  program splits the screen into two windows, one above the other, and runs a shell in each one.  The
       default shell is taken  from  the  SHELL  environment  variable,  or  /bin/csh  if  SHELL  isn't  in  the
       environment, but another shell can be specified on the command line.

       The  top  window is the default current window, but you can change to the other by pressing ^W.  Pressing
       ^V will quote the next character to the current shell.  Pressing ^O will put splitvt into command mode.

       These special characters (command mode, switch window, and quote next character)  can  be  modified  from
       within the .splitvtrc file.

       When  in  command  mode,  splitvt will read one non-numeric character, perform the requested command, and
       then revert to normal operations.  Numeric characters are interpreted as a parameter  for  the  specified
       command.  The currently supported commands are:

       'h'    Print a help window for the escape commands

       '-'    Shrink the current window

       '+'    Expand the current window

       'c'    Select a block of text in the current window

       'p'    Paste the selected text to the current window

       'k'    Kill the current window (hangup signal)

       'x'    Lock the screen, after prompting for password

       'r'    Repaint the screen (clearing screen garbage)

       'q'    Quickly quit splitvt, killing the running shells

       More functions may be added in the future.

       If the -s command line option is used, the upper window will be bound to the user defined number of lines
       even if the screen is resized.  Otherwise, the screen will be split into two equal parts based on the new
       size of the screen.

       The  environment  variable  SPLITVT  is set in the shells forked by splitvt.  In the shell running in the
       upper window, this variable is set to the value "upper", while the shell running in the lower window  has
       this  variable  set  to the value "lower".  This is useful in shell scripts to provide different behavior
       depending on which window the script is running in.  An example of this is shown in the  file  "menu"  in
       the examples directory in the splitvt distribution.

       When splitvt starts up, it looks in your home directory for a file named

       .splitvtrc  You  can  set  a  number  of  parameters  from within this file, including all of the special
       characters, the default number of lines in the upper window, whether or not to run the commands as  login
       shells, and even default commands to run in each window.

       Here is an example of a .splitvtrc file:

            # This is an example .splitvtrc file.
            set command_char        ^O
            set quote_char          ^V
            set switch_char         ^W
            set upper_lines         12
            run -upper              /bin/sh
            run -lower              top
            set login               on
            # This next line would override the above run statements
            #run /bin/tcsh

       If programs like vi are doing strange things to the window while in splitvt, you probably need to set the
       LINES environment variable to a correct value, or set  the  terminal's  window  sizing  correctly.   This
       should be done automatically, but may need to be corrected.

       If  you  are running under an xterm window, the title bar will probably be updated to show the version of
       splitvt that you are running.  Under a true xterm window, you can also switch which half  of  the  window
       you  are  typing into by clicking the mouse in the half of the window in which you want to type.  You can
       also drag and drop the separator bar by pressing down on the mouse button over the separator bar, holding
       it down, moving the mouse to where you want the bar to end up, and then releasing the button.

       splitvt  will  attempt  to erase the current utmp entry, and replace it with entries for the two windows.
       This allows you to use programs such as 'talk' within the splitvt windows.  If  you  do  not  have  write
       permission to the /var/run/utmp file, you will not be able to modify the utmp entries.

       splitvt  can be made set-uid root.  splitvt will reset its user id to that of the person running it, just
       before it exec()'s the shell under the window.  The splitvt process remains with  root  permissions,  and
       will change ownership of the pseudo terminals to that of the person running splitvt, and then reset it to
       root when the window is closed.

       SPLITVT IS NOT GUARANTEED TO BE A SAFE SET-UID PROGRAM!

       I have done all I know to keep splitvt a safely usable set-uid program, but I do not know everything, and
       am not responsible for any security weaknesses splitvt might posess.

BUGS

       When  used  with  a  certain  public  domain  version  of  ksh, you have to manually kill -9 on the shell
       processes after you quit splitvt.  This has to do with a bug in that version of  ksh  (Version  06/03/86a
       and possibly others).

       If  splitvt  is  compiled with xterm support, when run under an xterm, the cut and paste feature is semi-
       disabled.  The title bar may also be reset to the string "xterm" after splitvt quits.  See  the  comments
       at the top of splitvt.c for how to disable xterm support.

       Ansi colors are not repainted on screen refresh.

CAVEATS

       There  may be conflicts between splitvt's characters and other programs.  You can either change splitvt's
       default characters with command line options, or  you  can  type  Ctrl-V  (the  quote  character)  within
       splitvt, and the next character typed will be sent to the current window, no matter what it is.

       splitvt  can  only  be  used  by terminals using vt100 emulation, due to the use of specific vt100 escape
       codes.  (vt300, xterm, Linux console, etc, emulation also works)

       When running in an xterm, if you press the escape key, you will have to type another character  in  order
       for the escape to be seen by the running program.

AUTHOR

       Sam Lantinga   slouken@cs.ucdavis.edu