How to divide screen within a bash script

Question

I have made a short bash script that gets xml data using curl and sends some (it's a chat, in fact) regarding its given arguments. So I can either run the following :

watch --no-title myscript

and therefore keep an eye on what's going on online, or run :

myscript "some message"

The point is, I want to divide the terminal's screen in two part : one with the watch, and one with some kind of prompt/standard input, I don't know, but I want to get rid of the "two tabs in my terminal" stuff and get closer to an actual chat interface. See ?

EDIT : I'm basically looking for the right command to tell screen I want two screens, one above the other. Something like :

screen --number 2 --layout vertical

Answer 1

You can use program screen for this issue. http://www.softpanorama.org/Utilities/screen.shtml

Type screen, and it will start. It looks like normal command line, there is no difference, but now, you can use commands for screen: Typing Ctrl+A+[something]

So to divide the screen into to terminal screen vertically, type: Ctrl+A |

If you want it horizontally: Ctrl+A S

Then you can type in actual terminal whatever you want and need:

hostaneme$ watch --no-title myscript

And switch to the next terminal screen by: Ctrl+A [Tab]

Here is nothing yet, firstly the screen has to be created: Ctrl+A C

Promt is shown and you can type what you want.

hostaneme$

In the end, there you can have more screen in one place, just create them by Ctrl+A C, and you can change the active one using Ctrl+A N (Or using Ctrl+A 0-9 depending on its number).

Screen has many advantages, for example you needn't close it when you are about logout from the remote server, and you can load it back later.