Blinking text in hpterm

[Mauro Gatti]

It is possible write blinking text in hpterm?
I've tried with "tput blink" but unsuccessfully!
Maybe hpterm doesn't support blinking text...

I'm trying to put content of motd file in blinking mode.

Could U help me?

Thank you

[David Bell_1]

Mauro,

WHat version of OS are you using? In HP-UX 11i you could try to set the terminfo to blink. See the following URl and see if that helps:

http://devresource.hp.com/STKLI/man/11iv1.5/terminfo_4.html

HTH,

Dave

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Blink is not defined for TERM hpterm but in any event there is no assurance that you will be using hpterm.

A better method would be to see if blink is available; if not; use standout mode (sometimes reverse video, sometimes a different color, sometimes blinking - the most visible option available but is almost always defined for all terminals.)

X=$(tput blink)
if [ -z "${X}" ]
then
X=$(tput smso)
fi
echo "${X}\c"
motd
tput rmso # turns off blink or standout mode

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

hpterm is a very poor imitation of HP terminals and supports very few character enhancements. In HP-UX, the terminfo database (see /usr/lib/terminfo) contains the binary capability files for hundreds of terminals. To see what the database thinks about hpterm:

untic hpterm

As you can see, there is no blink. The same is true for the generic hp TERM value. However, all the 'real' HP terminals like the 2392 and 70096 as well as true HP terminal emulators such as the WRQ Reflection for HP product (not Reflection/X however).

Always test the request for tput -- it returns a non-zero value if the terminfo database does not have this attribute.