FS#12718 - extra/rxvt-unicode compiled with --enable-colors256

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Noah (print) - Friday, 09 January 2009, 12:17 GMT
Last edited by Aaron Griffin (phrakture) - Monday, 02 February 2009, 21:47 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Packages: Extra
Status Closed
Assigned To Tobias Kieslich (tobias)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version None
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 6
Private No

Details

Dear Sir/Madam:

Package:
extra/rxvt-unicode

Version:
ALL

Description:
Currently, extra/rxvt-unicode does not support 256 color mode. This is unfortunate, because programming tools like vim (console mode) and GNU/Screen handle 256-color mode. It would be nice to take advantage of those features without having to hand-roll urxvt. Because it's a terminal, and one of the most-used applications, I for one would prefer to have a stabler (read: extra) version installed.

Currently there are two AUR packages implementing urxvt-unicode with 256 colors enabled:

rxvt-unicode-256color:
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=13060; and

rxvt-unicode-256color-fontfix:
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=20941

This feature has also been discussed at length on the forum:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/search.php?search_id=1372043151

In closing, it would be great if 256 colors could be added as a default configuration option as it would benefit many people and probably render at least the first AUR package obsolete. The second one I'm not sure about, because I guess the fontfix would qualify as a "community patch," no?

Thanks,
print
This task depends upon

Closed by  Aaron Griffin (phrakture)
Monday, 02 February 2009, 21:47 GMT
Reason for closing:  Won't implement
Additional comments about closing:  Upstream ships 88 colors. We will honor upstream here.
Comment by Tobias Kieslich (tobias) - Saturday, 10 January 2009, 01:13 GMT
well, the thing is, moving these to extra does not make them more stable by a miracle. All I would do as a maintainer, is to include those patches, test them, and then pray that nothing breaks. Is it just as stable as rolling your own. While it would be nice, it doesn't really add a lot of value to the package because urxvt is a multi-colour terminal that supports not 256 but 88 colours out of the box. And that is plenty for colourizing your source in vim and using other console apps also through screen, which I do on a daily basis. It's a matter of adjusting a theme or two if you really have to but mos things work just fine.

I'd say it's not broken so don't fix it.
Comment by Noah (print) - Saturday, 10 January 2009, 01:51 GMT
Tobias,

Thanks for your fast reply. I'd agree with you: it's definitely not broken. That's why I filed a FR instead of a BR.

What I meant by 'stabler' was that one advantage of using a package manager is that you do not have to roll things by hand. And if you do end up having to roll by hand, that means keeping two package managers up to date (pacman and yaourt) and contending with the latter's mirror site in France. Just last night that puppy was down for several hours. So I would still maintain that a system based on extra packages is stabler in the long-run because it's more likely to be/easier to be kept up to date.

I'm not sure I follow you when you say that it's "plenty of colors." It's only plenty of colors so long as the thing you are doing in your terminal only requires 88 colors or less. (The added value is: 256-88=168 colors.) The vim colorschemes here all use 256: http://frexx.de/xterm-256-notes/.

On the other hand, if it's going to be a huge nightmare, I certainly don't want you to waste time on it, but if you add the patch and it doesn't break the build, what's the harm?

Best regards,
print
Comment by Tobias Kieslich (tobias) - Saturday, 10 January 2009, 02:57 GMT
Hi Noah,

don't get me wrong the request is not outrageous or something, the patch is just not required to make things work. It is sugar on top of functionality, hence it violates packaging standards (KISS and patch only if broken). What I mean by plenty of colours, 88 colours is IMHO enough to get some decent and good looking highlighting done. 256 give you more options but not for general colours, only some shades of green or red or blue you would like better than what's in the 88 colour range of urxvt.
http://evilroot.net/urxvt.jpg that's how mine looks like.
my main concern for such patches, that add some sugar candy is: at some point support for them usually disappears.
Comment by Greg (dolby) - Monday, 19 January 2009, 17:47 GMT
I would suggest convincing the developer of the application to include 256 color support in urxvt instead. He is strongly against it BTW.
If he doesnt apply it himself, thats a reason enough for me not to have it in the package in extra as well.
Comment by Greg (dolby) - Monday, 19 January 2009, 17:52 GMT
In addition the font-width-fix should be sent upstream.
Comment by Jeff Mickey (codemac) - Friday, 23 January 2009, 19:24 GMT
I personally feel that terminals should have as much color support as we can dream of, 256 or higher. Yet I agree with tobias and dolby that this needs to go upstream before we put it in the rxvt-unicode package. I see no reason to add patches written for 8.2 of rxvt-unicode to our 9.06 unless we know the maintainer of rxvt-unicode is going to support it.

This also goes against Arch's patching guidlines, which unless you are patching something to fix needed/broken behavior, then leave it vanilla. Heck, a fork of rxvt-unicode that has an active maintainer would be more likely to get into extra than patching the rxvt-unicode package.
Comment by Greg (dolby) - Friday, 23 January 2009, 19:32 GMT
A note regarding my previous comment. The font-width-fix patch has been discussed on the rxv-unicode mailing list but was rejected cause while it fixes some issues regarding certain fonts, it creates some more regarding others.
Comment by Tobias Kieslich (tobias) - Friday, 23 January 2009, 20:10 GMT
yeah, while the author of urxvt is, well, very opinionated, he does a very good job on keeping it clean and stable. I think there is a reason for the stability in keeping it clean. It is also very actively developed and I trust the authors judgement on integrating patches 100%. If he thinks it's better with 88 colours, that's good enough for me.

I don't close it yet if anyone wants to comment on it more yet it will be close soon as a won't implement.
Comment by Noah (print) - Saturday, 24 January 2009, 05:53 GMT
According to elb in #rxvt-unicode on freenode, "the urxvt author has decided that the tangible overhead in moving to 256 colors (doubling the storage for each character cell in the *entire scrollback*) is more than he wants to pay." So, dolby, I think you are correct about the rxvt-unicode author not wanting to bump it up to 256 characters. This is not because it isn't a good idea (hat tip to codemac) but because the burden is outweighed by the benefit. In any case, I'm glad I asked the question because I got to learn something about this package and the politics of open source.

Noah
Comment by Tobias Kieslich (tobias) - Saturday, 24 January 2009, 07:36 GMT
Hi Noah,
I understand what you mean with the politics. Anyway, I do have a 88colours dark background optimized theme, that works nice with a special .vimrc that set t_Co=88 for urxvt and a script that lets you choose colours for your own themes easily. That doesn't give the therm more colours but lets you choose easier. Shout me a not if you are interested.

Yeah yeah yeah I know, I should go ahead and make that publically available, well sometimes I'm lazy ...
Comment by Noah (print) - Saturday, 24 January 2009, 22:42 GMT
Tobias,

That would be swell. A pastie would do it. IMHO seeing more than 8 terminal colors really is one of those seminal Linux moments, like discovering screen for the first time. I know I'll never be the same again :)

Noah
Comment by Tobias Kieslich (tobias) - Monday, 02 February 2009, 06:05 GMT
Well, way to forget about my promise. Mea maxima culpa!

Here is the rundown:
tenum.vim - my absolutely unfinished theme I use with urxvt.
.vimrc - among many other things, there is some magic that by detecting the term type sets the t_Co variable to 16, 88 or 256 colours and then according to that sets the theme
88colourtest.vim - open in vim, run :source% and see which colour is attached to which number. Use this output to adjust the values in tenum.vim colourtheme
Most important ... have fun.
   tenum.vim (4.4 KiB)
   .vimrc (3.8 KiB)
   88colortest.vim (2.5 KiB)

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