Re: [Nano-devel] RFC: should error messages get colored differently? and in red by default?

[Brand Huntsman]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2018 22:24:54 -0600
David Ramsey <address@hidden> wrote:

> Brand Huntsman:
> > I agree, but use A_BLINK for the error statusbar on anything that
> > doesn't support color. ;)  
> 
> In all seriousness, this is actually a good idea too.
> 
> For the record, the blinking attribute currently works in xterm,
> rxvt-unicode

Rxvt-unicode can be compiled without blink support. Mine is, and probably 
everyone using Gentoo.

This shows normal text:
echo -e "\e[5m test \e[0m"
But this uses the bright black color for background:
echo -e "\e[5;31;40m test \e[0m"
And this uses bright black for foreground:
echo -e "\e[5;7;31;40m test \e[0m"

Adding A_BLINK with A_REVERSE or a black background causes the black to 
brighten, ending up with the unreadable "bold,black,red" issue. I don't think 
nano should default to A_BLINK for anyone. Non-color users will still have a 
working statusbar, but we have no idea how their terminal might react to 
A_BLINK.

We could add a blink attribute to the color code:
set errorcolor "blink,bold,reverse,red,black"
# blink bold black text on bright red