[techtalk] Text Color/Blinking

[Jeff Frasca]

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On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, Phil Savoie wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone had any idea as to how to make text in an
> /etc/issue file a different colour than the norm.  Also, I would like to
> make it blink as well.  Any thoughts?

The vanilla getty program (/sbin/getty) supports the escape sequence
\0x1b (which is the ASCII Escape), which allows you to embed the codes
in console_codes(4) manpage in the /etc/issue file.  The codes for
blinking, underlining and colorizing are in there.  So, if you wanted to
make a square red, you might put something like this in the /etc/issue
file:

"\0x1b[41m " (notice the space at the end.. that is to get the colored
character).  Also, \033 does the same thing \0x1b (\0xnn means a hex code,
\0nn means an octal code), and this will also work with mgetty.  

agetty doesn't support this, however, it is still possible.  If you are
using elvis (vi clone), you can type ":display hex" to get into a really
nice hex editor mode, and from there it is easy enough to embed the
actual escape character that gets sent to the terminal.  In elvis the
command would be "^X1b".  You can do this in the normal text editor
mode, and the character will be *displayed* as `^['.  This does work with
agetty, and should work with any other getty, if it doesn't support the
above style escape.  

Also, if you have a Mandrake 7.0 (and probably 7.1) computer around,
check out what getty program it uses and what the /etc/issue file looks
like -- the issue file has a really cool ASCII Tux, using the techniques
you are asking about.

> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
You're Welcome, I hope this helps.

Jeff

My Geekcode has moved to my .plan file.
finger phaedrus at 24.5.73.229 for that and other Junk

My Public Key -- http://24.5.73.229/pubkey.txt 



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