Neomutt true colors support

[pickfire]

A lot of terminal applications now supports true colors. mutt isn't supporting true colors yet, I wonder if neomutt will take the first step. https://dev.mutt.org/trac/ticket/3674

https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728 CC @XVilka

@flatcap What do you think?

[flatcap]

It's a lovely thought, but until ncurses/slang support true colour there's nothing we can (practically) do. When slang 2.3.1 is released, we can think about it.

I hadn't read XVilka post for a while. It's nice to see some progress, e.g. the version of Vim I'm using supports true colour -- I never knew.

[XVilka]

Added this one in the gist as well. Yes, midnight commander devs are also waiting latest slang release to start working on true colour support.

[pickfire]

@flatcap What's blue-sky label for?

And I think neovim is good all this while but now I found out that neovim uses stupid library that breaks some keys in st. (insert and delete keys)

vim's better even though it is larger and slower and less feature (well I still won't use it) haha

[flatcap]

"blue-sky" is an optimistic idea -- possibly unobtainable.
vim doesn't use ncurses or s/lang.
Anything that requires the removal/replacement of ncurses isn't going to happen -- however much I'd like it to.

[pickfire]

haha, unobtainable.

[nobrowser]

How does vim manage the terminal control sequences then? Does it have its own hard coded tables for each terminal type?

[flatcap]

It must look them up. The output of ldd $(which vim) show tinfo (terminal info).
I think it must be doing the rest of the screen handling itself. Given how complicated vim is, it probably makes sense.

Mutt, however, is too dependent on curses.

[nobrowser]

Sure, I have seen curs_lib.c; I wouldn't have it any other way, it's good to know when the interface misbehaves it is a bug and not a flea :-)

[nobrowser]

Btw, emacs did the same thing last time I looked (tinfo but not ncurses).

[flatcap]

I briefly looked at elinks for inspiration -- small, no curses, true-colour.

[pickfire]

@flatcap Yes, but somehow irssi manage to get true color even though they are using curses.

[flatcap]

ooh! good example. that's worth investigating.

[ailin-nemui]

irssi doesn't use curses. curses doesn't support true colours. also, true colours are overrated :-)

[flatcap]

that's odd, it's certainly linked against ncurses.
(welcome to the discussion, btw)

/me reckons that @ailin-nemui would prefer:

[flatcap]

@ailin-nemui -- Wow, you're Nei -- irssi's true-colour patches were your work.

How does irssi do it?
Do you have the time to explain?
Any pointers would be appreciated.

[ailin-nemui]

same as emacs and vim -- it would be enough to link irssi to tinfo on systems where this separation is provided. in the end you need to spew out the ANSI control codes to the terminal somehow (I heard @XVilka convinced slang to add true colour support...)

[flatcap]

Thanks.
Most of the Mutt/NeoMutt packagers use ncurses, but when slang offers true-colour, that could change.

[XVilka]

@ailin-nemui Yes, next slang release should be with truecolour support.

[pickfire]

@ailin-nemui Wow, amazing.

@XVilka Nice.

[XVilka]

You can now see how it's landed/implemented in Midnight Commander - I hope this can be useful for you http://www.midnight-commander.org/changeset/682a5116edd20b8ba81743a1f7495c883b0ce644

[ailin-nemui]

(you can see that MC forward it to slang)

[flatcap]

It's a good idea, but it will require major changes to mutt.

If someone volunteers to work on it we can re-open the issue.

This issue has been added to a list of closed discussions and blue-sky ideas.

[ghost]

duplicate of #5

[R3load]

The link in flatcap's close message to closed discussions and blue-sky ideas is broken. Where can we find this list now?

[flatcap]

Hi @R3load
Rather than maintain a long list of links, I tagged them all difficulty:hard and closed them.
To reopen them is just a mouse-click.

I have a plan for true-colour support 9and some proof-of-concept code), but there are higher priority tasks that need doing first. Unless someone volunteers to help.

[ngortheone]

@flatcap
Some time has passed since this issue was opened. Are there any updates?

Nowadays both slang and ncurses support true color. And you mentioned

I have a plan for true-colour support (and some proof-of-concept code)

Thanks!

[ngortheone]

⬆️ ❓

[flatcap]

There's no progress.

I know what I'd like to do, but it's a big job and very low priority.

There are two developers on NeoMutt, and we're really busy fixing and improving other areas of the code.
There are a handful of other coders who contribute what they can, when they can.

If you want true-colour support: you need to help.

I will make time to mentor new coders.
I'm happy to help people, help NeoMutt.

Every bit of help, in whatever area, improves NeoMutt (and reduces my workload).