Re: Terminfo description for gnome-terminal

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, Mar 10, 2002 at 11:52:38AM -0600, Rick Richardson wrote:
> 
> If this isn't the right list, a pointer to the right list is
> appreciated...
> 
> Here's the setup... Redhat 7.2 with all updates, gnome-terminal
> 1.4.0.4, and my own ncurses based application that uses ncurses and
> color.
> 
> The problem I'm experiencing is a few lines of the screen aren't
> getting updated and previous screen contents are left behind.  The
> problem shows up fairly rarely using the application, although I can
> make it happen repeatably and at will.  However, a call to
> wrefresh(curscr) repaints the screen properly (key ^L is mapped in my
> application to manually do this).
> 
> I spent several hours before coming to the conclusion that the problem
> was not within ncurses itself, but rather within the terminfo
> description, the terminal library, or gnome-terminal.

gnome-terminal is my guess.  To be really sure, I'd run the application
in 'script' so I could capture all of the characters sent to the screen.
Replaying the 'typescript' slowly (on the same screensize) shows problems
that are repeatable.  (I use slowcat, a copy of it is in the ncurses ftp
area).
 
> If I run the application within gnome-terminal with TERM=xterm, I
> get this fairly rare but annoying problem.  Everything else works
> perfectly, as do mutt and vi.
> 
> If I run the application within gnome-terminal with TERM=rxvt, the
> problem disappears (but now the key bindings are incorrect).  It also
> works perfectly fine within an rxvt.
> 
> If I run the application within gnome-terminal with TERM=gnome, the
> screen is messed up right from the beginning - the application is
> completely unusable with this TERM setting.

that would affect the specific colors shown, but not the number of lines
repainted (but there are too many diffs between xterm/rxvt for me to say
offhand why it would work better with TERM=rxvt).  See infocmp:
 
comparing xterm to gnome.
    comparing booleans.
        bce: F:T.
    comparing numbers.
        colors: NULL, 8.
        pairs: NULL, 64.
    comparing strings.
        kdch1: '\E[3~', '\177'.
        kf1: '\E[11~', '\EOP'.
        kf2: '\E[12~', '\EOQ'.
        kf3: '\E[13~', '\EOR'.
        kf4: '\E[14~', '\EOS'.
        op: NULL, '\E[m'.
        setab: NULL, '\E[4%p1%dm'.
        setaf: NULL, '\E[3%p1%dm'.
 
> This is driving me nuts.  Is this a known problem?  What terminfo
> description should be used with Redhat 7.2's gnome-terminal v1.4.0.4?
> Is changing to TERM=rxvt just masking a problem in the low-level
> screen update functions?  How should I proceed in order to point the
> fickle finger of blame in the proper direction?
> 
> Thanks in advance for any hints,

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <address@hidden>
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net