Re: less, exit but left content on screen
On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 01:55:13 +0000, Andy Smith wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 09:06:19PM -0400, Tong Sun wrote:
>> I remember that I used to be able to exit 'less' by command key 'x' or
>> something so that the content just viewed is left on screen, instead of
>> being cleared and restored to the screen before invoking 'less'. But I
>> found there is no such capability in current less (version 394). Or
>> is there?
>
> Can't you just call "less -X" or set the environment variable LESS
> to contain "-X"?
Thanks for all replies. On reviewing them and the faq, I think my wish
still holds.
Just like John Hasler has pointed out, the -X disables termcap
initialization and deinitialization. The effect is that, when I
browse say a big file, paging up and down several times, and then
exit, my xterm will be left with all contents that I've browsed,
with " ...skipping... " in between them.
So having a keyboard command 'x' or something can allows me,
- have the freedom to decide whether I want to leave the content or not
- invoke less the same way, no matter whether I want to leave the
content or not
- leave my xterm with the only pageful of info that I deliberately
chosen, instead of cluttering it with all the contents that I've
viewed.
I don't know if this is possible. But it's a nice feature. It comes
especially handy when you want to preserve your xterm scroll-back
history as much as possible, but still able to copy the content out
of the man page, which might be lengthy and might took a while for
your to locate where you want to copy from.
Thanks
--
Tong (remove underscore(s) to reply)
http://xpt.sourceforge.net/techdocs/
http://xpt.sourceforge.net/tools/
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