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Date:      Sat, 4 May 2002 23:38:59 -0700
From:      "Lucky Green" <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>
To:        <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: xterm and colour (Was: cvs commit: ports/mail/mutt-devel...)
Message-ID:  <002301c1f3ff$8c52a100$c33a080a@LUCKYVAIO>

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[Quotes from various folks about FreeBSD's "xterm" not supporting color
elided].

I don't know what the historical reasons are why FreeBSD's xterm does
not support color. Perhaps it was because there at one point was a
physical xterm device (like a genuine VT100 terminal) that would puke if
it were trying to connect to a server that extends xterm to include
color support. Who knows. I am sure there were good reasons for only
supporting monochrome for xterm, with the color version being called
xterm-color.

But I do know this: >90% of the users of various applications that
identify their terminal type as "xterm" expect that terminal server on
the other end to serve characters in color.

Unless there is a really good reason for not supporting color in xterm
today, as compared to perhaps a few years ago, I would urge whomever is
in charge of termcap to please change the termcap entry for xterm to
support color to bring it in line with user expectations. Even if that
breaks things for those using a True Xterm (TM), as long as there is a
fix for this small minority of users, the change should be made.

--Lucky, who found this unexpected behavior of FreeBSD to be much to the
amusement of his penguin-loving friends. I have been working on
converting them with quite some success, but xterm's current defaults
aren't exactly helping... Just my $0.02. I know that I don't understand
all the issues that factored into the decision to not support color in
xterm. While we are on this topic: the CONS25 default absolutely has to
go. Make it VT*, make it anything that is widely supported other than
that obsolete, and by today's standards downright obscure, SCO console.


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