154 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
154 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
These are some of the more frequently asked questions and hopefully some
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good answers to them.
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Q: I want to log into another Unix box via ssh, telnet, or rlogin from
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my MiNT box in a Toswin2 window. I get stuck because the remote
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party insults me with something like `unknown terminal tw52, using
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dumb instead' or `your terminal lacks required capabilities'.
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A: Read the file `README.terminfo'.
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Q: What is the recommended value for the "TERM" environment variable
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on remote machines?
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A: Read the file `README.terminfo'.
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Q: I don't see anything at all in my window, looks like black characters
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on black background.
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A: If this happens when you open a window you have messed up your
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color settings (foreground color = background color). Reconfigure
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your window to sane settings.
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If this happens in the middle of a session, some program has modified
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the foreground and background color. Type `tput sgr0' (turn off
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all attributes), `tput op' (original color pair) or `tput oc'
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(original colors) into your shell.
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Q: The display is completely messed up.
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A: Reset the terminal to sane settings using either `tput sgr0' or
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even stronger `tput is2' or `tput rs2'. This is _not_ the same
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as `stty sane'.
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Q: I see a lot of garbage on the screen, no characters at all but rather
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line graphics
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A: You have enabled the alternate character set which activates PC
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graphics. Type `tput rmacs' into your shell (of course you have
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to do that blindly).
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Q: How can I configure something for all windows?
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A: Close or iconify all windows and configure the window then. This
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will manipulate the default settings.
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Q: When I display manual pages, long lines are split by an ugly looking
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`<AD>' in reverse video mode.
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A: `AD' is the hexadecimal representation for decimal 173. Whenever
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the program `less' (which is usually the pager used by the `man'
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command) encounters a special (or 8 bit) character it assumes that
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the terminal cannot display it and outputs the hex code in reverse
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video instead. The copyright sign would be displayed as `<A9>'
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according to that rule.
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Fix: First make sure that your terminal is capable of displaying
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ISO-8859-1 (aka Latin-1) correctly. Either select a font that is
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coded in Latin-1 and configure your window for charset `AtariST'
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or - if you select an ordinary GDOS font or the default system
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font - let Toswin2 map your characters from AtariST to Latin-1 by
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configuring your window with the codeset `ISO-8859-1'.
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The trick is now to tell less about that capability: You have to
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set the environment variable `LESSCHARSET' to `Latin1'. In the
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Bourne shell (or bash or ksh) you do that by:
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LESSCHARSET="Latin1"
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export LESSCHARSET
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In the C shell (csh or tcsh) you do it with
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setenv LESSCHARSET "Latin1"
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You can do that in your shell startup scripts (/etc/profile for
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sh/bash/ksh or /etc/cshrc for csh/tcsh).
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Q: Why is white suddenly gray?
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A: The terminal capability `bold' was silently re-interpreted along
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the years to `bright'. You can for instance display the pure
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color red (RGB #ff0000) by using bright red. The `normal' red
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is somewhat darker. All colors in `dim' (or half-bright) mode
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are a little darker again).
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The problem with white is that you cannot make it any brighter.
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In ANSI mode white is therefore really some light gray. In order
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to have a white background you have to choose bright (bold) white
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in the window configuration dialog. Alternatively you can edit
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your `toswin2.cnf' for the particular window to:
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WinColorBG=7
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WinColorFG=0
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WinFGEffects=256
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WinBGEffects=0
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This may seem strange but many advanced curses applications draw
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tiny white lines on gray blackground and achieve this by using
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bright (resp. bold) white on normal white (which is really gray
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background). This wouldn't work if white is really white.
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A similar problem applies to black. A brighter black would actually
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tend to gray. However, the `bold' (bright) attribute is usually
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employed to emphasize a particular part of the text. Bold (bright)
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black is therefore really displayed in a bold font instead of
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changing the color.
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By the way, if your video hardware cannot display enough colors
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(at least 20 are required to define distinguishable colors for
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all ANSI modes in all colors) Toswin2 is smart enough to detect
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that and fall back to really using bold resp. dimmed fonts instead
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of changing the color rgb values.
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Q: I have an application that uses colors but the colors are not at
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all what the application says they should look like.
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A: There is no easy answer to that one.
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First possibility: At startup Toswin2 will inspect the current
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color map and pick the colors that come closest to the ones
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desired. If another application changes the color map afterwards,
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Toswin2 will currently not detect that and there is no other
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possibility than restarting Toswin2 to make it re-read the color
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map.
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Second possibility: You use some legacy application for Toswin2
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that doesn't use the terminfo database. Try to configure
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`VDI colors' for that application in the window configuration
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dialog. Alternatively you may edit your toswin2.cnf:
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WinVDIColors=1
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This is _not_ recommended as a default setting since applications
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that use the terminfo database will look very ugly in these windows.
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Third possibility: You are talking about the color yellow. The
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Linux console (which is somewhat the `opinion leader' in terms
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of color interpretation) has decided that yellow should rather be
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some kind of dirty orange. Toswin2 follows this convention, merely
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because it makes `yellow' readable even on white background. Another
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reason is that many, many curses applications are optimized for
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looking nice on the Linux console. They will also look nice in
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Toswin2 windows then.
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Q: What is this `tput'? Where can I learn more about all that terminal
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stuff?
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A: Take a week off from your job and start reading `man 5 terminfo'.
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This manual page is installed with the `ncurses' package on your
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system. The programs `tput' (enable/disable some named terminal
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capability), `tic' (compile and install a terminfo description
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file) and `tack' (convert a compiled terminfo description into
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`/etc/termcap' for legacy termcap applications) also belong to
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`ncurses'.
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