terminal capabilities WAS: muttcolors vs.TERM types

[Lee Bradshaw <lee@sectionIV.com>]

I saw your question while browsing the debian user archives. I believe
you're looking for a way to control whether programs like vi and less
use the alternate screen buffer (when you quit them, their output
disappears, and the original contents reappear) or the normal screen
buffer (just overwrite what's already there when starting and leave
the screen alone when exiting.)

# you need write permission, so change to your home directory
cd

# decompile the system xterm capabilities
infocmp xterm >xterm.dec

# edit xterm.dec removing the smcup=something, and rmcup=something, entries
vi xterm.dec # and make the edits

# compile the modified file
# this will create ~/.terminfo/x/xterm
tic xterm.dec

# start a new xterm and set TERM=xterm if that's not what's already
# there
# you should no longer have alternate screen capability, so vi, less,
# etc, will just overwrite the current display

Hope that helps.

-- 
Lee Bradshaw                 lee@sectionIV.com
Texas Instruments            bradshaw@ti.com