Re: [PATCH] xterm titlebar

[Tomas Styblo <tripie cpan org>]

* Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org> [Fri, 20 Dec 2002]:
> > That comment is probably outdated. Both the xterm_hintbar and
> > xterm_titlebar features work in my rxvt 2.7.8. That's a
> > development release, though.
> 
> I don't think that the code would be commented out if it was
> harmless on older versions of rxvt.  I wish I could check the
> old rxvt, but I don't have time.

The oldest version that is available on ftp.rxvt.org is 2.4.5
released in 1999. The oldest version I was able to find is 2.20
released in 1997, found in the debian-archive. I uncommented
the code and tested the xterm titles and they work OK in both
these versions.

I don't know whether we should care about yet older versions. They
are probably available from the rxvt maintainers or from some really
old distro CDs.

But I do not think the feature should be enabled by default.
What I propose is to add one new option to the configuration menu.
That option would be used to enable all the xterm titles: those
provided by the old xterm_hintbar feature and the new directory
title.

It would be nice to merge these two features into one.

Let's call the new configuration option "Xterm titlebar".

When it's enabled, then mc will set the titlebar to something like
this:

mc: /usr/local/bin (Do you know you can blah blah hint.)

That hint will change when the directory is changed.

I don't know if Adam would be willing to implement that.

> Please keep in mind that testing usually takes more time than
> coding.  If you don't check the dark corners, somebody will have
> to do it for you, either now, or when somebody reports a problem
> a few months later.

I know that. That's why I think most open source projects should
have an stable and an unstable branch. That way the users who want
new untested features can use the unstable branch and test the
features for us. I see nothing wrong with this approach, if the
user agrees with it by choosing the unstable branch.

There are two groups of people in free software development. The
first group works for "the cause" and is usually represented by
the maintainers. The second group of people produces code because
they need some particular feature. They like when their patch is
accepted to the official release because otherwise they will have
to update the patch whenever they want to upgrade the software.

You usually can't expect the same level of commitment from the
second group, because those people produce the code for rather
"selfish" reasons. The good thing is that the efforts of these two
groups of people usually may be merged to produce a better product
in the end, if the right approach is chosen.

> > I tried what happens when the xterm_titlebar feature is used
> > in an mc running in the linux console and it does nothing at
> > all. Which I suppose is good. :) But maybe a check for
> > getenv("DISPLAY") would be appropriate ?
> 
> Of course not.  The comment implies serious problems with rxvt,
> and you cannot distinguish between rxvt and xterm by checking
> the DISPLAY variable.

I made a mistake, I thought of the TERM variable. But it could not
be used either, because rxvt sets it to "xterm-color" in those old
versions I tested. 

> > Quoting is IMHO cumbersome in this case, a simpler and IMHO
> > acceptable solution would be to remove all characters except
> > some sane ones from the title.
> 
> Agreed.

Yet better would be to replace the characters with spaces. It's
less confusing for the user and even a bit easier to code.

-- 
Tomas Styblo <tripie cpan org>
PGP: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xC97EA4B6