Font color selection in MATE terminal

[Richard Owlett]

I have vision problems.
I *MUST* have black on white text in all cases.
The program I'm running gives out colored text.
The MATE Help screen is NOT helpful.
Help please.

[IL Ka]

try 

$ TERM=xterm-mono [your_program]

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

Richard,

What's the program? For some Xterms, the default is to colorize

All best,

Andy C.

[Richard Owlett]

On 06/22/2021 08:21 AM, IL Ka wrote:
> try
> $ TERM=xterm-mono [your_program]

didn't work :{

[Richard Owlett]

It's the local version of cht.sht being discussed elsewhere on this list.

The structure of the Edit->Profile Preferences suggests I can override
what ever dumb choices the programmer made.

I've encountered this with other programs.
I must have black on white *ONLY* for ALL programs if the output is to
be legible.


>
> All best,
>
> Andy C.
>
>
>

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jun 22, 2021 at 04:21:35PM +0300, IL Ka wrote:
> try
> $ TERM=xterm-mono [your_program]

/me tries

unicorn:~$ TERM=xterm-mono sudo apt update

Nope. No luck there.

unicorn:~$ sudo TERM=xterm-mono apt update

Nope. Not that one either.

If Debian's APT team is trying their very, very hardest to make me
never, ever want to use apt(8), they're doing an impressively good job.

Of course, I have no idea what Richard's actual program is, so here's
a half-hearted apology for possibly highjacking a thread. (Note: I'm
in rxvt-unicode, not MATE terminal.) (Sorry.)

[Richard Owlett]

On 06/22/2021 08:47 AM, mick crane wrote:

> Has the monitor got any controls on it ?
> mick

Monitor (Gateway FPD1730) has only positioning controls.
But in any case the MATE Terminal option menus imply I should be able to
have what I need.

[IL Ka]

unicorn:~$ sudo TERM=xterm-mono apt update

Nope.  Not that one either.

Some apps ignore the number of colors from the terminfo.

Their authors believe there are no colorless monitors.

Vim and bash works, however

$ TERM=xterm-mono vim

$ TERM=xterm-mono bash (no color prompt)

  

 

[Curt]

On 2021-06-22, Greg Wooledge <gr...@wooledge.org> wrote:
>
> Of course, I have no idea what Richard's actual program is, so here's
> a half-hearted apology for possibly highjacking a thread. (Note: I'm
> in rxvt-unicode, not MATE terminal.) (Sorry.)
>

It's cht.sh (in local mode), and he's going about things bass-ackwards.

He wants something like

cht.sh/ls\?T

or

cht.sh/ls\?style=bw

[IL Ka]

One more idea: install xterm (``apt install xterm``) and run it with ``-cm``

$ xterm -cm 

that means "do not recognize color esc. sequences"

Everything is b&w there

[Andrei POPESCU]

This has already been addressed before: you must change the color scheme
in the setting for MATE Terminal, to have it use black/dark gray/etc. as
needed for everything related to text.

The exact steps are different for each terminal emulator and I don't
have MATE Terminal installed here.

Kind regards,
Andrei
--
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

[David Wright]

On Tue 22 Jun 2021 at 17:32:55 (+0300), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Ma, 22 iun 21, 08:14:08, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > I have vision problems.
> > I *MUST* have black on white text in all cases.
> > The program I'm running gives out colored text.
> > The MATE Help screen is NOT helpful.
> > Help please.
>
> This has already been addressed before: you must change the color scheme
> in the setting for MATE Terminal, to have it use black/dark gray/etc. as
> needed for everything related to text.

At the end of May, IIRC

> The exact steps are different for each terminal emulator and I don't
> have MATE Terminal installed here.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a debian-mate list.

Oh, look, there it is!

https://lists.debian.org/debian-mate/

Cheers,
David.

[Richmond]

On the menu bar of mate-terminal, select Edit -> Profile Preferences ->
Colours

Uncheck the box that says 'Use colours from system theme'. Select Built
In Scheme Black on White from the drop down list.

[Siard]

On Tue, 22 Jun 2021 17:32:55, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Ma, 22 iun 21, 08:14:08, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > I have vision problems.
> > I *MUST* have black on white text in all cases.
> > The program I'm running gives out colored text.
> > The MATE Help screen is NOT helpful.
> > Help please.
>
> This has already been addressed before: you must change the color scheme
> in the setting for MATE Terminal, to have it use black/dark gray/etc. as
> needed for everything related to text.
>
> The exact steps are different for each terminal emulator and I don't
> have MATE Terminal installed here.

Well, I have. In the MATE Terminal settings (Edit > Profile Preferences),
tab 'Colors', under 'Palette', set 'Built-in schemes' to 'Custom' and
change every color in the color palette to black.

Here is a screenshot:
https://i.postimg.cc/2yv17y3Y/mateterminalcolors.png

[Peter Ehlert]

The controls are there, but not _all_ of the Text is black.

I tested in Bullseye and Buster.

Richard Owlett perhaps you should file a bug report

>
>
>

[Bret Busby]

On 22/6/21 11:34 pm, David Wright wrote:
<snip>

>
> Wouldn't it be nice if there were a debian-mate list.
>
> Oh, look, there it is!
>
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-mate/
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>

In viewing the published list archive for that list, all of the messages
this year, appear to be announce messages from developers, with no
support component for users.

Just an observation.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............

[Bret Busby]

Except, that does not stop colours from being displayed; for example,
warnings are displayed in yellow text (on white background).

And, that also applies, if provision for coloured text is commented out,
in the .bashrc file.

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 12:27:17AM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> And, that also applies, if provision for coloured text is commented out, in
> the .bashrc file.

There's nothing in .bashrc which controls the terminal's interpretation
of color escape sequences. Or in bash, anywhere.

It's entirely between the terminal, and the application which generates
the color sequences. The shell is not involved.

The closest the shell comes to being involved is if you try to trick the
application into thinking it's on a different kind of terminal, by
changing the TERM variable. This rarely works out well, except in
very specific circumstances -- the most notable being "I'm ssh-ing to
a system that doesn't know about my terminal type".

As I've already tested today, it sure as hell doesn't work for apt(8).

[Bret Busby]

Excerpt from .bashrc file:

"

# set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color)
# case "$TERM" in
# xterm-color|*-256color) color_prompt=yes;;
# esac

# uncomment for a colored prompt, if the terminal has the capability; turned
# off by default to not distract the user: the focus in a terminal window
# should be on the output of commands, not on the prompt
#force_color_prompt=yes

# if [ -n "$force_color_prompt" ]; then
# if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then
# # We have color support; assume it's compliant with Ecma-48
# # (ISO/IEC-6429). (Lack of such support is extremely rare, and such
# # a case would tend to support setf rather than setaf.)
# color_prompt=yes
# else
# next line commented out by me to prevent colouring of prompt
# color_prompt=
# fi
# fi

# if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
# PS1='[\D{} \t]
${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$
'
# PS1="\d \t \u@\h:\w$"
# else
PS1='[\D{} \t] ${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)} `date `\u@\h:\w\$ '
# PS1="\d \t \u@\h:\w$"
# fi
# unset color_prompt force_color_prompt

# If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir
case "$TERM" in
xterm*|rxvt*)
# PS1="[\D{} \t] \[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:
`date `\w\a\]$PS1"
PS1="\d \t \u@\h:\w$"
;;
*)
;;
esac

# enable color support of ls and also add handy aliases
# if [ -x /usr/bin/dircolors ]; then
# test -r ~/.dircolors && eval "$(dircolors -b ~/.dircolors)" ||
eval "$(dircolors -b)"
# alias ls='ls --color=auto'
# #alias dir='dir --color=auto'
#alias vdir='vdir --color=auto'

# alias grep='grep --color=auto'
# alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto'
# alias egrep='egrep --color=auto'
# fi

# colored GCC warnings and errors
#export
GCC_COLORS='error=01;31:warning=01;35:note=01;36:caret=01;32:locus=01:quote=01'

# some more ls aliases
# alias ll='ls -alF'
# alias la='ls -A'
# alias l='ls -CF'

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 02:27:04AM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> On 23/6/21 1:42 am, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > There's nothing in .bashrc which controls the terminal's interpretation
> > of color escape sequences. Or in bash, anywhere.

> Excerpt from .bashrc file:
>
> "
>
> # set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color)
> # case "$TERM" in
> # xterm-color|*-256color) color_prompt=yes;;
> # esac
>
> # uncomment for a colored prompt, if the terminal has the capability; turned
> # off by default to not distract the user: the focus in a terminal window
> # should be on the output of commands, not on the prompt
> #force_color_prompt=yes

All of that code is just for setting the shell's prompt. It has nothing
to do with how the terminal interprets color codes.

[Richmond]

Ok but I don't think it is a bug. The preferences dialogue has a note
saying that all the colours the custom colour palette are available to
terminal applications. So I think amending the colour palette as Siard
says might do it.

<20210622182358.7701...@mailbox.org>


>>
>>
>>
>

[David Wright]

On Tue 22 Jun 2021 at 08:35:42 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 06/22/2021 08:24 AM, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 22, 2021 at 08:14:08AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > > I have vision problems.
> > > I *MUST* have black on white text in all cases.
> > > The program I'm running gives out colored text.
> > > The MATE Help screen is NOT helpful.
> > > Help please.
> >

> > What's the program? For some Xterms, the default is to colorize
>
> It's the local version of cht.sht being discussed elsewhere on this list.
>
> The structure of the Edit->Profile Preferences suggests I can override
> what ever dumb choices the programmer made.
>
> I've encountered this with other programs.
> I must have black on white *ONLY* for ALL programs if the output is to
> be legible.

It's probable that all your options will involve some degree of
compromise. AIUI, TERM=xterm-mono foo involves cooperation from the
program foo, which might need the author to be aware of what an xterm
is. For example, mutt loses all its colours with that, but not my
script that starts it up.

You could try running xterm -cm which appears to eliminate colours
entirely, but unfortunately you also lose inverse-video, which might
require you to do some tinkering. For example, mutt would require
arrow_cursor setting for navigation.

Even turning down the colour on a monitor suffers where text and
background differ in hue but not luminance. So I don't think you'll
find a silver bullet that fixes every case.

Cheers,
David.

[Bret Busby]

Funnily enough, given what you contend, before I commented out the
colouring in stuff, when running ls -lh, directory names were displayed
in blue text, and, after I commented out the colouring in stuff, running
ls -lh, the output was all displayed in black text.

[David Wright]

Your "colouring in stuff" included dircolors.

Cheers,
David.

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 03:13:00AM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> Funnily enough, given what you contend, before I commented out the colouring
> in stuff, when running ls -lh, directory names were displayed in blue text,
> and, after I commented out the colouring in stuff, running ls -lh, the
> output was all displayed in black text.

OK, I made a slightly oversimplified statement.

MOST of the code in that excerpt goes into setting the shell's prompt.
There are also some aliases at the end, one of those being an alias
for ls, setting it up to use --color=auto.

So, the code that you posted affects two things:

1) Bash's shell prompt, which may or may not include color escape
sequences.

2) Various aliases that change the default behavior of some commands
(by adding options to what you type), including ls, which may cause
ls to emit color escape sequences.

In all cases, the behavior of the terminal in response to these color
escape sequences is defined by the terminal itself, and may or may not
be user-configurable.

Nothing in .bashrc affects the terminal's behavior. Only the terminal's
configuration affects that.

.bashrc controls the behavior of bash, not of the terminal.

[Richard Owlett]

I tried that yesterday and it didn't work.
I tried it again this morning, after a good night's sleep.
It still didn't work. BUT it finally registered that the settings I
changed were *NOT* being kept as in your screenshot.

I am running Debian 9.13 with MATE Terminal 1.16.3
Are you using the same?
Suggestions?
Thank you.

[Siard]

Richard Owlett:
> Siard:

> > In the MATE Terminal settings (Edit > Profile Preferences),
> > tab 'Colors', under 'Palette', set 'Built-in schemes' to 'Custom'
> > and change every color in the color palette to black.
> >
> > Here is a screenshot:
> > https://i.postimg.cc/2yv17y3Y/mateterminalcolors.png
>
> I tried that yesterday and it didn't work.
> I tried it again this morning, after a good night's sleep.
> It still didn't work. BUT it finally registered that the settings I
> changed were *NOT* being kept as in your screenshot.
>
> I am running Debian 9.13 with MATE Terminal 1.16.3
> Are you using the same?
> Suggestions?
> Thank you.

I am running Debian 11.0 with MATE Terminal 1.24.1.
This morning, the colors were still being kept and it still worked.
Alas, I do not know anything about older versions.

[Richard Owlett]

I have a secondary machine with Debian 10.7 which uses
MATE Terminal 1.20.2. That does save changes made using
Edit->Profile Preferences. I don't know yet if that solves all my
problems with the local version of cht.sh discussed elsewhere.

[Richard Owlett]

On 06/22/2021 08:14 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> I have vision problems.
> I *MUST* have black on white text in all cases.
> The program I'm running gives out colored text.
> The MATE Help screen is NOT helpful.
> Help please.
>

There is a bug in MATE Terminal 1.16.3 [used in Debian 9] which prevents
setting color preferences.

It is apparently resolve in MATE Terminal 1.20.2 [used in Debian 10].
I will not pursue further.

[Marc Shapiro]

Why select 'Custom'?

Richard needs black on white, so he should select 'Black on white'.  It
works for me.  I have been using 'Custom', Yellow on Black, like my
first monitor many years ago.  But selecting 'Black on white' gives
exactly that.

Marc

[Siard]

Yes, but it did not work for Richard, and as 'Custom' worked for me,
I came with this solution.
Later, it turned out that it was caused by a glitch in MATE Terminal
1.16.3, used in Debian 9. Later versions worked fine.
So 'Black on white' is indeed the most obvious way.

[Richmond]

Strangely, I am using MATE terminal 1.20 and now it is not working. I
have a profile called Black and White. I change the colour profile
preferences to the black and white scheme, but when I launch emacs -nw,
it displays blue underlined text in places. And when I go back and look
at the colour preferences in MATE it has gone back to custom.