Unicode and Midnight Commander

sirlark · Last edited by sirlark on Thu Oct 26, 2006 10:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi,

I would like to set up my console to use unicode, and can do so with ease, however I have noticed that when using unicode, programs like midnight commander and the kernels menconfig option (that is ncurses apps I guess) don't display correctly, as the borders of dialogs and frames etc... do not display using the right characters. In some cases this even affects the layout of things within the frames (esp in mc). I assume this is a font problem, although I have chosen a unicode font for the console, but I am not sure. Is it perhaps that ncurses isn't unicode aware???

Any ideas how to solve this?

Thanks
James
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i92guboj · Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:18 pm Post subject:

For mc, just compile it with slang instead of ncurses, and you will be fine.

sirlark · Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:22 am Post subject:

Nope, that doesn't seem to be it... It seems to be an xterm font "problem" i.e. the default font looks screwy, but I've found one that works...

But thanks for the headsup on slang! I've recompiled!
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aries · Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:40 pm Post subject:

Hello Sirlark,

How did you exactly sole this problem? Just by changing the default font only/

I have the same problem as you:
- midnight commander as root is OK
- mc as user gives A´s and 3´s as border

sirlark · Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject:

Hi, I'm sorry ...

I DIDN'T solve the problem. It turns out my problem was not in fact a unicode issue. My problem was that even without unicode being started, when running any ncurses app with borders n an xterm, things looked screwy! I solved it choosing an appropriate font, namely ...

-*-neep-medium-r-*-*-11-*

which is not a standard font AFAIK... in fact I don't know where I even found it. I have recently tried to get unicode working again, but with the same problem as you, except that instead of displaying odd chracters instead of 'borders' nothing is displayed at all, so nothing in fact that where a border should be, the entire rest of the line is shifted one character to the left, leaving black space n the end for each unprinted character. This happens regardless of the fonts I choose from /usr/share/consolefonts

Sorry again, but good luck in finding a solution, I've been trying now for almost 18 months on and off.
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aries · Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:02 pm Post subject:

Thanks,

Do you have the problems with mc in all terminal emulation modes?

I have the kde terminal applet added to the panel and when I run the KDE terminal emulator as:
1. normal user midnight commander : no problem
2. normal user ´shell´ and run mc : no problem
3. normal user ´linux console´ and run mc : no borders but odd characters
4. root midnight commander: no problem
5. root ´linux console´: no problem

Log in in the bash shell (no kde)
6. midnigth commander: no borders but odd characters.

Don´t know yet why problems only happen for point 3 and 6.
Updating /etc/locale.gen and doing "locale-gen¨ did not help.

sirlark · Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:32 pm Post subject:

Hi, use a very bare bones setup, blackbox and xterm ...

How do I go about changing terminal emulations, as I would really like to test the six cases you have outlined?
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aries · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:50 pm Post subject:

I am afraid our problems are not solved yet

The terminal emulation uses:
1: xterm
2: xterm
3. konsole
4: xterm
5: xterm

Details konsole: By default unicode is disabled in the konsole for me.
I tried in the konsole to enable and disable unicode and to use mc:
A. echo -n -e '\033%G'
=> enable unicode
=> mc with strange borderlines and also NOT correctly aligned
=> kernel ´make menuconfig´ NOT correctly aligned
B. echo -n -e '\033%@'
=> disable unicode
=> mc with a ´3´ as border lines but correctly aligned
=> make menuconfig: correctly aligned

With disabled unicode one can use the konsole but it does not look very nice.
Maybe another font corrects the strange borderlines

Details xterm: no problems with unicode
You can start xterm with uncode :

aries · Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:33 am Post subject:

For this moment I disable unicode in the console.
I can live with this: xterm with unicode works.

Unicode in the console does not work for me: mc and 'make menuconfig' for example show the strange borderlines.
Changing fonts etc does not help, I did not try 'the 'neep' font.

It seems unicode + ncurses (or the way ncurses is used) is a problem.
See also https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-495919-highlight-.html

Searching the internet gave me the impression that for menuconfig the use of ncursesw could possibly solve the problem, but I have not tried this yet
(see http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/24/66)

dementer · Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:42 am Post subject:

Its not just ncurses you have to rebuild tho, I found a quick reference on google about ncurses dependencies. I usually get this on new installs when Ive been mucking wth the use flags early on.

Also this may come in handy for you
http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Resetting_Your_Console