Re: problem with gnome terminal

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011, Mark Manning wrote:

> This is not a bug report, my problem is not related to ncurses or its
> use but you might have information that could help me fix my issue. In
> fact, Im not using libncurses in my application at all because my
> application is a forth compiler.  I have basically created my own
> curses library in forth that can pretty much do most of the things
> that ncurses can do but which takes up only 4k of code space.
>
> I am not however catering to all the quirks of every terminal type in
> existence. E.G. if there is no format string for an SGR in some
> terminal's terminfo I dont have any glue code that says "well i know
> what its format string is".  I am also not doing sub windowing (though
> that would be trivial to implement).
>
> My problem is that i know that for SETAF and SETAB color 0 is black, 1
> is red, 3 is green etc. and herein lies the problem!.  This is an
> absolute truth in every terminal I have thus far used EXCEPT gnome
> terminal.  For some obscure reason the gnome development team has
> decided that color 0 shall be dark gray and color 15 shall be black.
> This BOGGLES the mind!
>
> Now, what I dont want to start doing is gordian knot code that says
> "Well it seems were using gnome terminal here so lets fudge the colors
> to accommodate".  What I would like to know is - without knowing im
> specifically running within a gnome terminal how can i know the values
> of each color.  For all I know there are other terminals that I have
> not yet encountered that also have this problem.

Generally, you cannot know that.  xterm has control sequences that
let you know - but none of the the other terminals implement those
(I think...).

> How does ncurses handle this? did you go for the duct tape solution
> with special glue code to "fix" the gnome terminal bogosity?

no - each release of gnome terminal introduces a new set of 
bugs^H^H^H^Hfeatures.

I hadn't noticed this particular issue; I suppose it's possible
to make an SGR which interchanges 0/15, but then it's possible
that the next release of gnome terminal will change the color
scheme again.

> Also, WHY oh why do the people who create the terminfo database always
> neglect to include a format string for SGR?  This basically forces me
> to output an SGR0 and then reinstate all the attributes I didnt want
> to reset which is forcing me into taking the absolute slowest path!

Which terminal description needs an sgr definition?

(There are a lot which don't have one, but except where I can test it, I 
generally don't add one, since it's also true that a few "real" terminals 
don't support setting multiple parameters).

--
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net