Column widths FROM / WHAT in w(1)

[Polytropon]

System: FreeBSD 12.0-p3 i386.

I recently discovered that the WHAT column in the output
of the "w" command has become unusable, and "man w" does
not seem to indicate any user control for the formatting
of the columns.

The column WHAT now can only show up to 3 (in words: three)
characters on a standard 80-column terminal. I will put a
ruler on top for illustration:

....+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7....+....8
USER       TTY      FROM                                      LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT

Things like "xinit" become "xin", and any longer command
cannot be easily identified anymore. Columns 79 and 80
aren't used at all.

For comparison: On an older system, I get this layout:

....+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7....+....8
USER             TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT

This is more than 20 characters for the WHAT field.



Any idea on how to get the old layout of w back, instead
of increasing the terminal width?


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...