kern/83109: syscons does not always display colors correctly

[Travis Poppe]

>Number:         83109
>Category:       kern
>Synopsis:       syscons does not always display colors correctly
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Jul 07 19:40:13 GMT 2005
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Travis Poppe
>Release:        FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD maya 5.4-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE #3: Wed Jun  8 09:04:59 MST 2005     tlp at maya:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/MAYA  i386
>Description:
syscons does not always display colors correctly in many color-based applications I have tried in the past. Some of these include:

net/naim
games/angband

For example, in 'net/naim', your AIM buddies in the WINLIST window will sometimes change color as you scroll through them with the TAB key. They will sometimes even seem to disappear entirely.

In the second example (games/angband), your character in the game has stats on the left side of the screen. Some will change colors for no apparent reason while playing the game (not normal behavior).

Some of the enemies you are fighting in the game (they are represented by various colored ASCII characters) will also change to improper colors temporarily as they move (which can impair playability).

One obvious demonstration of this is the border on the town level of 'games/angband'. Part of it will display as a regular gray (normal) and part of it will display as a darker gray (not normal). The border on the town level should always be one solid gray color.

These problems are not limited to the two applications mentioned above. However, those are the most obvious examples I can think of.
>How-To-Repeat:
Install 'games/angband' and run it in syscons (make sure the TERM environment variable is not set or set to the default one) and press 'Enter' until you are in the town level.

You will see that the town level's border is not one solid light gray color (proper behavior), but instead a mix of light gray and dark gray. 

Other color display problems present in the game may not be as obvious to someone who is not familiar with the game. However, running the X client of the game should give an accurate impression of what it normally looks like.
>Fix:
I've found a single workaround that has problems of its own. Setting the TERM environment variable to 'pc3' before starting 'games/angband' will correct the dark gray/light gray problem in the border mentioned above, but it will change some of the colors to non-standard ones (for example, yellow becomes orange). This also alters the default keymap. 
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: