larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) (03/05/90)
As most of you know, I am running 386/ix. I have a friend who
is interested in running 386/ix on his machine - but he really
wants color consoles.
Under SCO Xenix - the setcolor utility works rather well - and
keeps the console in the set up colors when using most of the system
utilities.
I received a "setcolor" utility for 386 unix and it works until
I bring up vi - in which case the console is reset to white on
black. If I run this utility again, the set up color remains
active again until I run one of several system utilities or
applications in which case the console is reset. Is there
any way to set and keep the console in a specific color combination?
--
The Northern Star Public Access Unix Site, Notre Dame, Indiana USA
uucp: iuvax!ndmath!nstar!larry internet: larry@nstar
USR HST 219-287-9020 * PEP 219-289-3745 * Hayes V9600 219-289-0286jay@metran.UUCP (Jay Ts) (03/05/90)
[1;37;45m In article <511241@nstar.UUCP>, larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) writes: > [...] > As most of you know, I am running 386/ix. [...] > I received a "setcolor" utility for 386 unix and it works until > I bring up vi - in which case the console is reset to white on > black. If I run this utility again, the set up color remains ^^^^^ [1;37;44m Actually, *grey* on black. Normally, you get white by hiliting grey. [1;37;45m > active again until I run one of several system utilities or > applications in which case the console is reset. Is there > any way to set and keep the console in a specific color combination? [1;37;44m What I am now doing to try to achieve this is a horrible kludge, but since I haven't seen anyone post a better method, here it is. What I do is simply run a setcolor-like command from my crontab, which looks like this: (look at it with vi, to show escape char's) --------------------- start of crontab entry --------------------- * * * * * echo -n '[1;37;44m' >/dev/console; echo -n '[1;32;44m' >/dev/vt01; echo -n '[1;37;43m' >/dev/vt02; echo -n '[1;37;45m' >/dev/vt03; echo -n '[1;33;45m' >/dev/vt04; --------------------- end of crontab entry ----------------------- [1;37;44m (sorry if this messes up your screen...) Basically, I am just printing the necessary escape sequences -- see display(7) in the 386/ix User's/System Administrator's Reference Manual -- to the console and virtual terminals once each minute. It's rather nice getting white (not grey) text, and a different color combination for each virtual screen, so I know which one I'm using. [1;32;44m Now, this method doesn't *really* work, it just comes close. I just use it because I'm desperate for color text. If vi messes up the colors, it will take up to a minute for them to be reset, and you still have to press CTRL-L to refresh the whole screen. vi is most annoying; it resets the colors upon startup and each time it prints an error message! [1;37;43m OK, now that I have made a fool of myself by posting this silliness, someone *please* tell us of a better way! [1;37;44m Jay Ts uunet!metran!jay [0m [5;41;33;1mflames[0m to [1m/dev/null [0m
cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) (03/05/90)
In article <511241@nstar.UUCP> larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) writes: >I received a "setcolor" utility for 386 unix and it works until >I bring up vi - in which case the console is reset to white on >black. This can be fixed by modifying the terminfo definition for AT386 (or whatever you are using for your terminal type). I believe the parameter is something like initc for "initialize color", but I'm not positive. You should add in the sequence to set the appropriate color for initc. You might want to have several AT386-xx entries for each color path and set up your setcolor utility as a shell function which will change your TERM environment variable to match the color settings. Review the terminfo(4) man page for more information. -- Conor P. Cahill (703)430-9247 Virtual Technologies, Inc., uunet!virtech!cpcahil 46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160 Sterling, VA 22170
daveb@i88.isc.com (David G. Burton) (03/08/90)
In article <1990Mar5.125403.10941@virtech.uucp> cpcahil@virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill) writes: |In article <511241@nstar.UUCP> larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) writes: |:I received a "setcolor" utility for 386 unix and it works until |:I bring up vi - in which case the console is reset to white on |:black. | |This can be fixed by modifying the terminfo definition for AT386 (or whatever |you are using for your terminal type). I believe the parameter is something |like initc for "initialize color", but I'm not positive. You should |add in the sequence to set the appropriate color for initc. You might |want to have several AT386-xx entries for each color path and set up your |setcolor utility as a shell function which will change your TERM environment |variable to match the color settings. Review the terminfo(4) man page |for more information. I rather prefer the XENIX approach to this: setcolor(1) defines the color "set" used by all applications (unless they specifically override). This includes the shell, vi, more, and many applications that presume a black-and-white environment. Advantages: . don't need to modify the termcap/terminfo descriptions . can be set independently by each user to individual preferences, without resorting to AT386_DAVEB, AT386_SANDY, etc. . it seems to change the definitions of "white" and "reverse" to whatever is defined, thus it works with any application that tries to set the screen color to "white" or "reverse". One disadvantage resulting from the "redefinition" is that applications that really do want/need white can't get it, and the redefined colors may interfere with colors used by applications to distinguish objects (e.g. word processors to indicate bold text). Also, this requires driver support, so that \E]0m (or whatever) doesn't give the default white. -- Dave Burton uunet!ism780c!laidbak!daveb