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Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 17:01:10 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Improving /etc/motd and ANSI
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/etc/motd has been in need of improvement for some time.  Recently, I 
did a rewrite:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.diff

This new version still has the problem of using "in-band" quote marks to 
mark up the commands.  We tell the reader to run `man man', for example, 
but it's not particularly obvious that the quotes should not be entered.

As an experiment, this version uses ANSI underline escape sequences:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.ansi

That reads better, is less likely to be misunderstood, and will work on 
normal consoles and most terminal emulations in use today.

It will not display correctly on things that do not understand 
VT100/VT220 or ANSI codes, but I suspect that is a vanishingly small 
portion of the user base.  Those users are also likely to be familiar 
with the problem.

Is there some showstopper reason not to commit this ANSI version?