tweaking $TERM

[Evan Leibovitch]

Giles Orr wrote:
> I've come up against similar problems and your comment about "man
> terminfo" is what stopped me - I just gave up.  If you're successful
> and feel like sharing, please post info about what you did either to
> me or back to the list if others are interested.  Thanks.

It's intimidating but, like so much of Linux and Unix before it,
figuring out the secret handshake is half the battle. The tweaking a
terminfo entry is not particularly difficult once the tools are known:

1) identify a definition that is close to what you want

2) decompile it using `infocmp` to a text file

3) use your favourite editor to adjust the handful of variables you want
to change

4) using that same editor, give your entry a new name. if the
differences from the one you started are minor, considering the name in
the form of "basename-modname" (ie, "ansi-color")

5) recompile using tic. Usually this will place the compiled verion in
the right place for you.

6) you can use `infocmp` to verify the differences between the base
entry and your modified one.

There are a lot of terminfo entries out there. Many Linux distributions
only install a small subset (usually the ansi, vt100 and wyse ones) and
keep the rest in another package to be optionally installed.

- Evan


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