Re: CVS commit: src/lib/libcurses

[Valery Ushakov <uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost>]

On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 21:04:37 +0000, nia wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 09:01:51PM +0000, nia wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 11:55:24PM +0300, Valery Ushakov wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 20:17:10 +0000, Nia Alarie wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Module Name:	src
> > > > Committed By:	nia
> > > > Date:		Mon Jul 26 20:17:10 UTC 2021
> > > > 
> > > > Modified Files:
> > > > 	src/lib/libcurses: curses_standout.3
> > > > 
> > > > Log Message:
> > > > The BUGS sections is incorrect again for "modern" terminals.
> > > > 
> > > > For example, wscons and xterm both display standout differently to bold.
> > > 
> > > Please, revert.  The bugs section need to be changed to caveats (it's
> > > not a bug, if it's by design) and fixed, not removed, as the sitution
> > > it warns about is still very much pertinent.  The fact that xterm
> > > chose to use A_REVERSE video instead of A_BOLD is just an irrelevant
> > > detail.
> > > 
> > > -uwe
> > 
> > Suggested wording? I was thinking:
> > 
> > "Some modern terminals may display characters with the standout
> > attribute set identically to those with the bold or reverse attribute
> > set."
> 
> ... A note that some legacy terminals may _only_ support standout
> is probably pertinent too, given the discussion that spawned this.

I'm not sure what is the discussion you are referring to, but it's not
a matter of a simple rewording.  "It's complicated", as it ties into a
few other things, so ideally it needs a coordinated change to several
man pages.

Even the official "X/Open Curses, Issue 7" docs are not very good at
explaining this and cross-referencing things properly, so you need to
do a bit of legwork to find out.

The two key points from the spec that the BUGS section tries to warn
you about is (emphasis mine):

  A_STANDOUT - Best highlighting mode of the terminal

  The standend() and wstandend() functions turn off ALL attributes of
  the current or specified window.

Roughly speaking "standout" is a kind of higher-level alais and it
works differently than other attributes (standend).  Mixing it with
explicit use of other lower-level attributes is not a good idea.

-uwe