Re: A unified color scheme?

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2020 23 May 10:40 -0500, Thomas Beierlein wrote:
> Hi Nate,
> 
> these are really good and valid points. From my experience in last
> years I can confirm that color handling via ncurses is quite some
> nightmare especially when you use a terminal emulator under X. 

> So thanks for the link below with some thorough discussion about the
> problems. 

A pet sidetrack project.  :-)

> Right most emulators allow only bright foreground but no bright
> background. I think that was the reason for using inverted color
> pairs in TLF from the beginning.
 
I'm still learning the subtleties but the console clearly can do bright
text on a bright background that the emulators don't.

> If you look to other programs using ncurses few uses a white/gray
> background. Better combinations results from having blue as background
> and using white of yellow letters. But I think that is to much to
> change now.

The color scheme for Xterm is quite useable to me with these "correct"
colors.

> The screenshots are coming through. I guess forst screen shot is from
> pure Linux console, second one from xterm with your Xresource file and
> the last from urxvt?
> 
> The problem with the different shades of white in the last  screenshot
> may be solved by setting a pure TERM=xterm. I had similar problems in
> the past with the introduction of xterm-256color not handled properly.

I'll attach a shot of URxvt where I started Tlf as:

        TERM=xterm-256color tlf

it is not much different, if at all.

What I see of the UI code in Tlf is that rxvt is handled such that it
tries to play the part of the Linux console.

> > Instead, I think that simply unifying Xterm and URxvt and leaving
> > the console alone is a better idea.

> For the time being I think it may be a good decision. 

I did get private feedback from a user that prefers the console so I
think it should be left well enough alone.

As for Xterm and URxvt, I think if Tlf just treats them the same as far
as colors are concerned and recommend using our Xresources, then I think
we'll have a good level of consistency.  Actually, I am unsure of people
choosing URxvt instead of Xterm these days but some may.  Plus, this has
become a bit of an interesting subproject of mine.

> As a reminder: If TERM is NOT set to xterm or rxvt TLF assumes you are
> using plain linux console and allows you to set the colors via TLFCOLOR=

Ah, that is the secret.  I think I was puzzled why I couldn't get that
keyword to work last winter.

The reason I am promoting Xterm is due to it not consuming the key
combinations that other terminals consume.  Keys like F11 and
Ctl-PgUp/PgDn come to mind.  Xterm also supports anti-aliasing with
TrueType fonts these days so it can look quite nice on the modern desktop
(I'm using Gnome these days).

73, Nate

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
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