Colors within terminal app on HP-UX 11i

[UNIX GruppeHDI]

Hi,

I'm using putty to connect to an HP-UX 11i server and then start vim with syntax highlighting. I just get different sort of grey and underlined characters. So, how do define a TERMINFO/TERM to get real colors displayed?
I've already tried a bit with different tic files and tic_colr etc. ...

Bye,
Udo.

[Mark Grant]

Normally, you play with the terminfo values but if you have done that and are convinced that it's ok, you could try and make sure that "stty -a" shows you "cs8" and if not set it. I seem to have some long lost memory about colour and setting this but could be way off base.

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

You'll need to identify exactly what terminal putty is trying to emulate and see whether the ttytype -s command idetifies it correctly. This is a combination of terminal emulation (can the putty program display any colors at all?), and if so, can putty be configured to handle different terminfo parameters with different colors (ie, bold=blue, dim=yellow, etc), and if so, change the map in putty. vim (as far as I know) is using the Curses library (and hopefully does not have hardcoded escape sequences internally). For instance, try this little snippet to show the different character enhancements:

eval $(ttytype -s)
echo "ttytype says this is a $TERM"
HB=$(/usr/bin/tput dim) # dim text
HV=$(/usr/bin/tput smso) # 1/2 bright inverse
IV=$(/usr/bin/tput bold) # inverse
UL=$(/usr/bin/tput smul) # underline
BL=$(/usr/bin/tput blink) # blink
echo "Normal $IV Inverse $HB Dim $BL Blink $HV halfbrite $UL underline"

The problem with terminals (and emulators like putty) is that there are so many of them. The good news is that hundreds (about 1800 different models) are included in /usr/lib/terminfo/* so dig out the putty manual to see how video enhancements and colors are handled. The terminfo man page gives some good info about colors too. Look for: Color Manipulation in the man page.

[UNIX GruppeHDI]

Thanx for the help. It improved my understanding of term/terminfo/termlib etc.
putty is capabale of displaying colors - tested with a script changing colors by means of escape sequences. Finally, I was vim's "problem". So, I had to configure vim to use escape sequences.

Bye,
Udo.