Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 17:01:10 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com> To: freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org Cc: wblock@FreeBSD.org Subject: Improving /etc/motd and ANSI Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1409061646170.69004@wonkity.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
/etc/motd has been in need of improvement for some time. Recently, I did a rewrite: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.diff This new version still has the problem of using "in-band" quote marks to mark up the commands. We tell the reader to run `man man', for example, but it's not particularly obvious that the quotes should not be entered. As an experiment, this version uses ANSI underline escape sequences: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/motd/motd.ansi That reads better, is less likely to be misunderstood, and will work on normal consoles and most terminal emulations in use today. It will not display correctly on things that do not understand VT100/VT220 or ANSI codes, but I suspect that is a vanishingly small portion of the user base. Those users are also likely to be familiar with the problem. Is there some showstopper reason not to commit this ANSI version?
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?alpine.BSF.2.11.1409061646170.69004>