howard@garfield.UUCP (Howard . Campbell) (10/23/84)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Funny prompts? Well, try these one's out!
Actually, there is a sort of evolution of prompts,
in my case, and here they are!
One of my first prompts was:
set prompt = " \! \___ "
Which, for me, produces
128 \___
^ cursor sits here. ( or blinks, depending whether you
are on a vt100 or other cursor
blinking terminal ... )
Then, one day, I thought, well, let's get a bit more wild...
and came up with this.... ( Try it out and see! )
set prompt="\E[[2;1f\\!\E[2;75f\\!\E[24;1f = "
Note, the escape codes here are for vt100s, and to make the prompt
work, you have to make \E a true escape character, as well as convert
the escape code to what will work for whatever terminal you'd be using.
/* In case someone doesn't know about vt100s, `\E[a;bf' puts
the cursor at line a, column f. */
Well, that just was not enough. When I should have been typing in
an assignment, (or some other important but less enthralling duty)
I got adventurous (and creative, too, I guess...) and produced:
set prompt="\E[2;1f\\!\E[2;75f\\!\E[24;1f->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H ->^H^H --> "
Well, same applies for this prompt as the one above, this prompt
will only work when you pop into your favourite editor and convert
the \Es to real ^[s, as well as converting the escape codes.
Too, here you must convert the two-character ^Hs to the real thing.
My experience is with vt100 and XL87s, and the backspace character
works fine with these terminals, but I suspect there may be terminals
which will not handle it properly.
Well, I think I'll stop here, and let you net-people digest these
wonderful creations. ( How vain, eh!?! Actually, around here, some
people absolutely barf when they see these things, but often people
think them to be quite cute at first. ) Myself, I've several prompts,
the rest of which I'll post later. These others are even more bizarre,
and rather interesting to behold for the first time. I find, though,
that one ignores them after awhile. Still, I much prefer them to the
terribly ( to me! ) plain '%'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Howard
Campbell
at:
---------------------------------------------------------------
{akgua, allegra, dalcs!dreacad, ihnp4, utcsrgv}!garfield!howard
Memorial University of Newfoundland
---------------------------------------------------------------