Re: [Lynx-dev] FreeBSD4.9/term=xterm/ncurses/putty - display problem

[Leonid Pauzner]

20-May-2004 17:26 Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Thu, 20 May 2004, Leonid Pauzner wrote:

>> Hi!
>>
>> I run into the following problem.
>>
>> A fresh FreeBSD 4.9 system installed from CD,
>> it is accessed via PuTTY terminal emulator.
>> Lynx 2.8.5rel is compiled with the default library (ncurses).

> and complicating the problem is that FreeBSD uses their termcap entries
> in preference to ncurses' terminfo.   (Their termcap file has many
> errors).

Yes, I was feeling the problem came from the wrong termcap/terminfo,
but never change database from the distribution' default:((


>> When running lynx I see the wrong picture:
>> text and links are shown on a white background (OK),
>> while the trailing spases on each line are shown in black !!!
>> It is with the default term=xterm environment.

> Trailing spaces in the wrong color are usually because the terminfo (or
> termcap) doesn't match the terminal's characteristics.

Another glitch I was seeing numerous times on different RedHat distributions
with other terminals is not clearing the trailing spaces (= some garbage
from the previous page is displayed in place of trailing spaces).
Refresh with ^W fix the visual output, which is overkill.

Having in mind the numerous broken distributions around, is it possible
to implement a "safe" mode in lynx to write trailing spaces explicitely
on any terminal?  (Perhaps twice slower but always visually correct)

Let would we use lynx as a browser and left other programs for testing the
broken terminal databases.


> The terminfo I made for PuTTY indicates that clearing does not propagate
> the current color setting (though I seem to recall some disagreement about
> that - recent versions of PuTTY may have changed this, or made it
> optional).

> FreeBSD's "xterm" is (the last I knew) basically xterm-xfree86, which
> tells ncurses that the terminal will propagate colors. If your original
> terminal background was black, and PuTTY does not propagate colors, then
> there will be occasional patches of incorrect colors (the terminal's
> original background).

>> Switching the environment to term=linux apparently "fix" the problem,
>> colored output is shown on a white background.

> The linux termcap should have "ut".  Checking, I see that FreeBSD's
> termcap has this incorrect.  Given that incorrect information, ncurses
> will assume it has to fill in colored blanks explicitly rather than
> relying on the terminal's clearing to do this.   (This is slower).

> (If FreeBSD's termcap were correct, an analogous explanation would be
> a little harder ;-)

>> A naive question: what was wrong with the default configuration?