On Thursday, 30 September 1999, at 21:53:18 (-0400),
Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> Interesting... Except I'm not running eterm or rxvt.
I can't say I sympathize with your plight much, in that case. :-)
> I'm using xterm.
Then you're pretty much screwed. See below.
> System #1, RedHat 5.2: xterm -v => XFree86 3.3.3(88)
> System #2, RedHat 6.0: xterm -v => XFree86 3.3.3.1b(88b)
>
> Simple question... If it's the terminal and not mutt, why does
> it only occur with mutt? I can do the same thing with vi (vim) in color
> mode and not have the problem. I can do the same thing with cat and less
> and more and man and not have the same problem. I never had the problem
> with elm, but elm didn't have a color mode so that's not a point on the
> curve after all... If it's the terminal, why is mutt different than all
> of these others? If it's the terminal, what is mutt doing different (than
> vim specifically since vim is using color mode just like mutt) that
> is triggering the problem?
>
> I hope that doesn't come across sounding like I'm irritated
> 'cause I'm not. I'm just curious as to what the parameters are that
> are causing this...
It doesn't only occur with mutt. It will occur with any program or
screen management library/utility which chooses to use spaces to fill
to the end of a line rather than using the EL sequence (termcap field
"ce", clear to end). For example, jed has the exact same behavior on
my system. (It's interesting to note, however, that elm does not. It
uses ncurses. So does emacs, and it doesn't have this behavior
either.)
There is nothing the terminal can do about what a given program
chooses to use. However, it *can* determine whether to ignore those
extraneous spaces. Eterm allows you to choose this for yourself at
any time. No other terminal does, AFAIK.
Is that the correct solution? I don't know, since I can't really
speak to why SLang is choosing that route. All I'm saying is that you
can use a terminal that leaves the choice to you, or you can stick
with your current terminal and leave the choice to
SLang/ncurses/curses. It's entirely up to you. I can't think of any
other "solution."
Michael
PS: I swear I'm not trying to sound like a sales pitch here, although
I probably am. :-)
--
"I am I am I said I'm not myself, I'm not dead, and I'm not for sale.
So keep your bankroll lottery eat your salad day deathbed motor-
cade." -- Stone Temple Pilots, "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart"
=======================================================================
Michael Jennings <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> www.tcserv.com PGP Key ID: BED09971
Software Engineer, VA Linux Systems Author, Eterm (www.eterm.org)
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