[PATCH] Fancy rc startup style RFC - v6

[Eric Anderson]

Eric Anderson wrote:
> Eric Anderson wrote:
>> Bill Vermillion wrote:
>>> Somewhere around Wed, Apr 19, 2006 at 04:07 , the world stopped
>>> and listened as freebsd-hackers-request at freebsd.org graced us with
>>> this profound tidbit of wisdom that would fulfill the enjoyment of
>>> future generations:
>>>
>>>> Message: 20
>>>> Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:07:31 -0700
>>>> From: Darren Pilgrim <darren.pilgrim at bitfreak.org>
>>>
>>>> Eric Anderson wrote:
>>>
>>>>  > If I could figure out how to make sh do colors, I'd do it. :)
>>>
>>>> Please do not use colors in rc. Escape-sequenced colors make
>>>> unacceptable assumptions about the user and syslogd strips
>>>> escape sequences anyway, so it would be of no use to logged
>>>> consoles. Serial consoles introduce other problems with buggy
>>>> escape handling in third-party terminal programs. A good text
>>>> layout and descriptive status messages do far more for clarity
>>>> and readability than any use of color ever can.
>>>
>>> Let me add to that.  About 10% of the male population has some
>>> color vision problem.  Mine is a bit more than others.   Everytime
>>> I get called to work on a Linux system, I have to go in and disable
>>> the colors as the reds and other colors become very hard to see
>>> against a dark background.   The problem is the luminance value of
>>> colors such a red is quite low compared to others.  That's one of
>>> the reasons why fire-trucks in this area are lime-green, as red
>>> trucks disappear into the blackness at night.
>>>
>>> If you add color make sure it is a user selectable option
>>> and not turned on by default.   IMO everything you need to admin a
>>> system needs to be able to run on something as lowly as a pure
>>> serial terminal as the above poster notes.
>>
>>
>> Ok. So I've received mass amounts of mail regarding this, and most of 
>> it has been positively in favor of having the option to enable the 
>> rc_fancy, and then an additional option to turn on coloring, with the 
>> default to be non-colored but still rc_fancy="YES" which should work 
>> ok on serial and other terminals (it did for me).
>>
>>
>> I completely agree about all the coloring comments, and terminal 
>> issues.  I personally think it should be an available option, easily 
>> enabled or disabled at will.
>>
>> I've put up an updated version, with many changes.  This version 
>> includes optional coloring (with rc_fancy_color="YES" in rc.conf), 
>> better checking, cleaner coding, and no loops.  This version is *much* 
>> more refined than the others - thanks for all the hints everyone!
>>
>>
>> http://www.googlebit.com/freebsd/patches/rc_fancy.patch-5
> 
> Looks like this version does something strange - from an xterm, the 
> spacing is correct, but from console, it doesn't do anything with the 
> \033[71G in the echo.  I've played with term types, but can't seem to 
> make it act the same under console as it does in an xterm.
> 
> Anyone know the issue?


Thanks to Rick Petty for pointing me in the right direction (man page!), 
here's the latest, and I think solid patch (for RELENG-6):


http://www.googlebit.com/freebsd/patches/rc_fancy.patch-6


Eric




-- 
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Eric Anderson        Sr. Systems Administrator        Centaur Technology
Anything that works is better than anything that doesn't.
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