Re: OS X Terminal.app and Aptitude

[Ian Brandt <ian@ianbrandt.com>]

Sorry, meant for this to go to the list (why no Reply-To?)...


Thomas Dickey wrote:

First off thank you for such a helpful response!

>> "pretty garbled" could be more than one thing...

Here are some screen shots:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/44533716@N00/sets/72157594195837848/>

>> Backing up a little, I'd edit that line to show
>>
>> macosx|generic color xterm,
>>
>> and remove the $HOME/.terminfo/x/xterm-color and
>> $HOME/.terminfo/n/nxterm,
>> rerun tic.  Then
>>
>> 	infocmp macosx xterm-color
>>
>> would show whatever changes were made other than the sgr string.

Here is the result:

$ infocmp macosx xterm-color
comparing macosx to xterm-color.
    comparing booleans.
    comparing numbers.
    comparing strings.
        hts: '\EH', NULL.
        is2: '\E7\E[r\E[m\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l\E8\E>',
'\E[m\E[?7h\E[4l\E>\E7\E[r\E[?1;3;4;6l\E8'.
        kdch1: '\E[3~', '\177'.
        kend: NULL, '\E[4~'.
        kfnd: '\E[1~', NULL.
        khome: NULL, '\E[1~'.
        kslt: '\E[4~', NULL.
        meml: NULL, '\El'.
        memu: NULL, '\Em'.
        rs2: '\E7\E[r\E8\E[m\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l\E>',
'\E[m\E[?7h\E[4l\E>\E7\E[r\E[?1;3;4;6l\E8'.

>> xterm-color is almost certainly technically incorrect because it's
>> unlikely that Terminal was designed to match that set of data.

I agree.

>> Running on Debian, you should be able to use tack (part of ncurses)
>> to step through the features.  I'd expect some differences on the
>> color model for instance.  Seeing the test fail for either flavor
>> of "xterm-color" should help a little.

I'll try to learn my way around tack's tests and follow up with a
meaningful log.

>> Since xterm-color was not designed to match Terminal, any
>> differences here aren't going to be applied to ncurses.  (In
>> articular, I recall some complaints that the backspace/delete
>> settings don't match Debian).  But it would be useful to have an
>> accurate terminal description for Terminal.
>>
>> Supposedly we already have this - the nsterm entries that have
>> been in ncurses since 2001.  There were some minor fixes to those
>> early this year - see
>>
>> 	ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.gz

I compiled your terminfo on my Debian box, and ssh'd over with TERM
set to 'nsterm'.  A few initial observations:

  - Color is lost at the Bash prompt.
  - Horizontal borders in Aptitude (e.g. in the search or quit
dialogs) become '?' characters.
  - Delete works at the bash prompt, but in Aptitude it prints '^[[3~'.
  - Backspace works in Aptitude, whereas with xterm-color it printed '^?'.

Thanks Again,

Ian