Re: tty[1-6]: colors a negative accessibility/usability trend

[Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>]

On Sun, Mar 01, 2015 at 01:32:01PM +0000, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 27/02/15 13:48, Karel Zak wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 11:32:41AM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> >> Karel Zak, le Mon 16 Feb 2015 10:47:47 +0100, a écrit :
> >>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 04:35:33AM -0500, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> >>>> On 16 Feb 2015 10:10, Karel Zak wrote:
> >>>>>  What we want to duplicate? What exactly in lib/colors.c is duplicate?
> >>>>>  The code evaluates filenames and parses files with "name colorcode".
> >>>>
> >>>> whether the terminal even supports color in the first place.  if i picked a 
> >>>> terminal that doesn't support color so i didn't have to worry about it, it's a 
> >>>> bit crazy i also have to go to multiple config files and also tell them i don't 
> >>>> want color otherwise i get corrupted output.
> >>>
> >>> For now it checks isatty() and nothing else, it would be possible to
> >>> check number of supported colors in terminfo too, or is there any
> >>> other way?
> >>
> >> It should also check how to change the colors. Not all terminals will
> >> support the ANSI way.
> > 
> >  OK, linked with libtinfo, now it checks if the current terminal supports 
> >  colors ("colors" from tinfo) and all the stuff is disabled for terminals
> >  like vt100.
> > 
> >>> Anyway, we don't want to create (duplicate) any database, all it
> >>> provides are knobs for customization and enable/disable.
> >>
> >> It provides only that because the source code currently hardcodes the
> >> \033[%sm sequence, but it really should not, and use terminfo instead.
> > 
> >  This is not implemented yet, I (or any volunteer?) will try to add to code 
> >  an extra layer to avoid the hardcoded sequences and read the colors from terminfo.
> 
> I'd be careful to not over engineer that.
> coreutils currently hardcodes ansi sequences,

Yes, I know about it and coreutils has been my specimen for terminal-colors :-)

> and I've not heard specific complaints about it.
> What terminals are not catered for here?

I don't know, my plan is to do some research to better understand what
Samuel is talking about.

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com