Standout and Appearance Modes

Appearance modes are modifications to the ways characters are displayed. Typical appearance modes include reverse video, dim, bright, blinking, underlined, invisible, and alternate character set. Each kind of terminal supports various among these, or perhaps none.

For each type of terminal, one appearance mode or combination of them that looks good for highlighted text is chosen as the standout mode. The capabilities `so' and `se' say how to enter and leave standout mode. Programs that use appearance modes only to highlight some text generally use the standout mode so that they can work on as many terminals as possible. Use of specific appearance modes other than "underlined" and "alternate character set" is rare.

Terminals that implement appearance modes fall into two general classes as to how they do it.

In some terminals, the presence or absence of any appearance mode is recorded separately for each character position. In these terminals, each graphic character written is given the appearance modes current at the time it is written, and keeps those modes until it is erased or overwritten. There are special commands to turn the appearance modes on or off for characters to be written in the future.

In other terminals, the change of appearance modes is represented by a marker that belongs to a certain screen position but affects all following screen positions until the next marker. These markers are traditionally called magic cookies.

The same capabilities (`so', `se', `mb' and so on) for turning appearance modes on and off are used for both magic-cookie terminals and per-character terminals. On magic cookie terminals, these give the commands to write the magic cookies. On per-character terminals, they change the current modes that affect future output and erasure. Some simple applications can use these commands without knowing whether or not they work by means of cookies.

However, a program that maintains and updates a display needs to know whether the terminal uses magic cookies, and exactly what their effect is. This information comes from the `sg' capability.

The `sg' capability is a numeric capability whose presence indicates that the terminal uses magic cookies for appearance modes. Its value is the number of character positions that a magic cookie occupies. Usually the cookie occupies one or more character positions on the screen, and these character positions are displayed as blank, but in some terminals the cookie has zero width.

The `sg' capability describes both the magic cookie to turn standout on and the cookie to turn it off. This makes the assumption that both kinds of cookie have the same width on the screen. If that is not true, the narrower cookie must be "widened" with spaces until it has the same width as the other.

On some magic cookie terminals, each line always starts with normal display; in other words, the scope of a magic cookie never extends over more than one line. But on other terminals, one magic cookie affects all the lines below it unless explicitly canceled. Termcap does not define any way to distinguish these two ways magic cookies can work. To be safe, it is best to put a cookie at the beginning of each line.

On some per-character terminals, standout mode or other appearance modes may be canceled by moving the cursor. On others, moving the cursor has no effect on the state of the appearance modes. The latter class of terminals are given the flag capability `ms' ("can move in standout"). All programs that might have occasion to move the cursor while appearance modes are turned on must check for this flag; if it is not present, they should reset appearance modes to normal before doing cursor motion.

A program that has turned on only standout mode should use `se' to reset the standout mode to normal. A program that has turned on only alternate character set mode should use `ae' to return it to normal. If it is possible that any other appearance modes are turned on, use the `me' capability to return them to normal.

Note that the commands to turn on one appearance mode, including `so' and `mb' ... `mr', if used while some other appearance modes are turned on, may combine the two modes on some terminals but may turn off the mode previously enabled on other terminals. This is because some terminals do not have a command to set or clear one appearance mode without changing the others. Programs should not attempt to use appearance modes in combination except with `sa', and when switching from one single mode to another should always turn off the previously enabled mode and then turn on the new desired mode.

On some old terminals, the `so' and `se' commands may be the same command, which has the effect of turning standout on if it is off, or off it is on. It is therefore risky for a program to output extra `se' commands for good measure. Fortunately, all these terminals are obsolete.

Programs that update displays in which standout-text may be replaced with non-standout text must check for the `xs' flag. In a per-character terminal, this flag says that the only way to remove standout once written is to clear that portion of the line with the `ce' string or something even more powerful (see section Clearing Parts of the Screen); just writing new characters at those screen positions will not change the modes in effect there. In a magic cookie terminal, `xs' says that the only way to remove a cookie is to clear a portion of the line that includes the cookie; writing a different cookie at the same position does not work.

Such programs must also check for the `xt' flag, which means that the terminal is a Teleray 1061. On this terminal it is impossible to position the cursor at the front of a magic cookie, so the only two ways to remove a cookie are (1) to delete the line it is on or (2) to position the cursor at least one character before it (possibly on a previous line) and output the `se' string, which on these terminals finds and removes the next `so' magic cookie on the screen. (It may also be possible to remove a cookie which is not at the beginning of a line by clearing that line.) The `xt' capability also has implications for the use of tab characters, but in that regard it is obsolete (See section Cursor Motion).

`so'

String of commands to enter standout mode.

`se'

String of commands to leave standout mode.

`sg'

Numeric capability, the width on the screen of the magic cookie. This capability is absent in terminals that record appearance modes character by character.

`ms'

Flag whose presence means that it is safe to move the cursor while the appearance modes are not in the normal state. If this flag is absent, programs should always reset the appearance modes to normal before moving the cursor.

`xs'

Flag whose presence means that the only way to reset appearance modes already on the screen is to clear to end of line. On a per-character terminal, you must clear the area where the modes are set. On a magic cookie terminal, you must clear an area containing the cookie. See the discussion above.

`xt'

Flag whose presence means that the cursor cannot be positioned right in front of a magic cookie, and that `se' is a command to delete the next magic cookie following the cursor. See discussion above.

`mb'

String of commands to enter blinking mode.

`md'

String of commands to enter double-bright mode.

`mh'

String of commands to enter half-bright mode.

`mk'

String of commands to enter invisible mode.

`mp'

String of commands to enter protected mode.

`mr'

String of commands to enter reverse-video mode.

`me'

String of commands to turn off all appearance modes, including standout mode and underline mode. On some terminals it also turns off alternate character set mode; on others, it may not. This capability must be present if any of `mb' ... `mr' is present.

`as'

String of commands to turn on alternate character set mode. This mode assigns some or all graphic characters an alternate picture on the screen. There is no standard as to what the alternate pictures look like.

`ae'

String of commands to turn off alternate character set mode.

`sa'

String of commands to turn on an arbitrary combination of appearance modes. It accepts 9 parameters, each of which controls a particular kind of appearance mode. A parameter should be 1 to turn its appearance mode on, or zero to turn that mode off. Most terminals do not support the `sa' capability, even among those that do have various appearance modes. The nine parameters are, in order, standout, underline, reverse, blink, half-bright, double-bright, blank, protect, alt char set.

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