Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 17:15:51 -0600 From: Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> To: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com> Cc: freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Improving /etc/motd and ANSI Message-ID: <B16D580C-1337-40B2-8DC2-AEF63D0A4027@bsdimp.com> In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1409061646170.69004@wonkity.com> References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1409061646170.69004@wonkity.com>
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--Apple-Mail=_915E61AF-6F44-4602-A758-F6C844F0E0C6 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 On Sep 6, 2014, at 5:01 PM, Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com> wrote: > /etc/motd has been in need of improvement for some time. Recently, I = did a rewrite: >=20 > http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd > http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.diff >=20 > 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. >=20 > As an experiment, this version uses ANSI underline escape sequences: > http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.ansi >=20 > That reads better, is less likely to be misunderstood, and will work = on normal consoles and most terminal emulations in use today. >=20 > 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. >=20 > Is there some showstopper reason not to commit this ANSI version? It embeds the notion that all the world is a VT100 and interprets the = ANSI escape code identically. In years past, this definitely wasn=92t the case. But in those years we = had many different breeds of terminal roaming the earth, and these terminals were all somewhat = different (even at the same installation you=92d have a heterogeneous setup because different = departments got different vendors to supply their gear). These changes would break that. One of = the nice things about Unix has always been it played very nicely in a heterogeneous = environment and all fancy smancy curses action was done through a layer of indirection so it would = work everywhere, unlike VMS where things were more hard-coded and it was always hard to = use non-DEC gear. It also assumes that all users want to see the fancy ANSI version with = underlines and such. While rather innocuous, one needn=92t look any farther than gnu=92s color ls = to see what madness lies not too far down this path. Finally, console scraping code may be affected in some minor way and = you=92ll wind up with text that looks weird. None of these are huge show-stoppers. But it is a very nice camel=92s = nose at the moment, and I=92d hate to see the rest of the camel=85[*] Warner [*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel's_nose --Apple-Mail=_915E61AF-6F44-4602-A758-F6C844F0E0C6 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: GPGTools - https://gpgtools.org iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJUC5WnAAoJEGwc0Sh9sBEAh3wP/3HrEa9HIkO59qmHhT+AjqHU cu2FfK+BS+Nmj+1X4JHo0OJNm4nTeld3dpD3Z/etzgTuiFh9T3v3tLp33rb2JROR UrwV9X2ge29b+aP2bC+Aid6dHih/apq+YhCdC9jwhexzPwYWQaWio73AnbCBPAR1 sb1K4gAa18/EC6K2fHdWhgHsxCqfUhToJFRxMwGwpUaB4c/FHH402NYuDieN4+M4 ZQFKjM8AckzDY3MmEd/cKxAuqRsfhjlM7OWZuV8gIlM+UEWNnCmyYEql5ZYdFdeA gTecCHF+mQZTDRPrQYHq3ajs1nCOCw4/y7v0BGP4/Q/lKR9rtvuuGQ55r8igjPx4 fouoLpQjJ9xOJfX+fUsHRGqWkzgsFOw8jWDaWlDaCzRi5NOXrga20aQspLFkU8m2 rFwMrlHaM0CaA9YIxQmLBsJ5gyLlQ3B9ax3WVk9FRWLHEvQdH68f1b8iY4rCsRWH agtF0iE+urk4J8Ud4p3mIbQndGxUOefbTE3deENERLdGKvk6SkzWY9r+PHXQQhIP qmHCkqZ4ulWKf3trzCPIKQPMcMH6jukV/WlbATEEmcGDUnqfwqWkPywhngoPG6lv bigxH4D6JOWt9Df5Z3ol1Eb0uTV5YAiFkZQhom/7inbhB3Vz+aPFImL9RjuvjyPb uT/4k80I/Mn3Lo2ewM7D =GRJx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Apple-Mail=_915E61AF-6F44-4602-A758-F6C844F0E0C6--
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