Re: subshell on Cygwin with screen

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hello!

> The first time I use Ctrl+o mc returns the following:
>
> Error
>
> Not an xterm or Linux console;
> the panels cannot be toggled.

This happens if there is nothing interesting behind the panels, i.e. no
subshell and no saved screen.

Screen saving only works on the Linux console and xterm-compatible
terminals (that includes cygwin console).  However, you still should have
the subshell.  What it the output of "echo $SHELL" and "mc -V"?

> It works fine without screen.

Do you have the subshell in the cygwin console?  If you press Ctrl-O, do
you get the command prompt?

> Is this a limitation ?

Yes, it's a limitation.  Midnight Commander relies on the terminal to
interpret the output.  Midnight Commander doesn't know what's on the
screen used for the command output.  To save the screen with the command
output, mc should be able to read that data back (Linux console) or
instruct the terminal to save the data in a separate buffer (xterm).

The best solution would be to embed a terminal program (e.g. stripped down
minicom) into mc.  Then reading the data back would be trivial.  This is
planned in the development version of mc.  You can find it in the TODO
list.

Another solution would be to add xterm emulation to the screen program.
Then you would be able to run "screen" on any terminal, even vt100, and
have xterm screen saving functionality.  That's actually a great idea.
Somebody should try it.  "screen" is already a terminal - it should just
be enhanced.

> Changing TERM to cygwin makes the error disappear but doesn't change
> anything.

Of course.

> Using CVS 20021204 and screen 3.9.13.

Maybe you are using a precompiled binary with the subshell disabled for
historical reasons?

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin