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Grex > Info > #133: What works as a pager for new people? | |
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| Author |
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popcorn
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What works as a pager for new people?
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Apr 3 14:38 UTC 1994 |
This item has been erased.
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| 52 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 52:
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Apr 3 15:10 UTC 1994 |
Try:
define pager "less -dE -P 'Press SPACEBAR for next screen, q to quit'"
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popcorn
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response 2 of 52:
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Apr 3 15:17 UTC 1994 |
This response has been erased.
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gregc
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response 3 of 52:
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Apr 4 10:55 UTC 1994 |
John just illistrated the principle of RTFM very well in response #1. :-)
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davel
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response 4 of 52:
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Apr 4 11:54 UTC 1994 |
Yes. Valerie, I was surprised at you.
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kaplan
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response 5 of 52:
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Apr 4 17:38 UTC 1994 |
What happens with newuser on m-net? I seem to remember that I got
a helpful prompt tellimg me to hit space and when I checked the
.cfonce that was created for me it had "more -i" or something like
that. Like the helpful prompt was built into the more program over
there.
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kaplan
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response 6 of 52:
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Apr 4 17:45 UTC 1994 |
Perhaps the same idea from #1 should be used for the shell prompt. If
you don't know anything about unix and you pick bbs shell and you or
your line noise accidently issues a ctrl-z you'd be faced with a shell
prompt. That prompt could say, "type fg to get back to PicoSpan."
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remmers
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response 7 of 52:
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Apr 4 17:48 UTC 1994 |
If your shell is bbs and you issue a control-Z, I don't think you'd
get a shell prompt. You'd probably be logged off.
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remmers
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response 8 of 52:
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Apr 4 17:51 UTC 1994 |
Okay, I just checked it out. If bbs is running as your login process,
it ignores or traps control-Z's and just leaves you in bbs.
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carson
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response 9 of 52:
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Apr 4 17:52 UTC 1994 |
Ctrl-Z DOES log off those of us who use bbs. ;)
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remmers
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response 10 of 52:
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Apr 4 18:00 UTC 1994 |
I guess I can believe that. In any case you wouldn't get a shell
prompt, since if bbs is your login process, there's no other shell
running underneath.
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kaplan
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response 11 of 52:
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Apr 4 18:16 UTC 1994 |
I looked at /b and I didn't see how it was different from picking sh as
your login shell and running bbs in your .profile . What does /b do?
Anyway, here's why I suggested a new prompt. My friend didn't know
anything about picospan or unix so I had him pick csh as his login shell
and I put kite's menu in his .login. He picked bbs from the menu and must
have hit ctrl-z because he got a shell prompt and didn't know how to get
back. So I guess I have a new suggestion:
A choice in addition to the shells and bbs in newuser should be "menu" or
perhaps "lynx" after lynx learns to execute programs. People who opt for
this choice should have a helpful shell prompt that tells them how to get
out of the shell.
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remmers
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response 12 of 52:
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Apr 4 18:28 UTC 1994 |
Look at /b again. It does an *exec* of bbs -- that's different from
just "running" it. Instead of starting up bbs as a subprocess of sh,
it "overlays" sh in the same process.
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popcorn
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response 13 of 52:
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Apr 5 03:06 UTC 1994 |
This response has been erased.
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popcorn
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response 14 of 52:
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Apr 5 03:07 UTC 1994 |
This response has been erased.
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bubbles
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response 15 of 52:
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Apr 5 05:43 UTC 1994 |
A certain other PIco
span (oops, hit Enter while reaching fopr shift) system uses more for the
default pager but has a prompt has says to hit spacebar for more or q to
quit. If line noise feeds it garbage it says hit h for help.
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kaplan
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response 16 of 52:
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Apr 5 15:13 UTC 1994 |
Re 12: thanks for explaining exec. So, with this friend with 'menu' in
his .login, would 'exec menu' protect him from unwanted shell prompts?
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remmers
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response 17 of 52:
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Apr 5 18:37 UTC 1994 |
I imagine so.
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davel
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response 18 of 52:
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Apr 5 21:57 UTC 1994 |
If menu is a script, he'd probably have to do something like exec csh menu
or exec sh menu. Though I'm not sure, & don't have time to try it at
the moment.
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popcorn
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response 19 of 52:
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Apr 6 11:40 UTC 1994 |
This response has been erased.
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davel
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response 20 of 52:
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Apr 6 12:14 UTC 1994 |
It's a sh builtin, but also a csh builtin. Don't know about the others,
but I'd expect them to have it too. Might conceivably be under another
name, I guess.
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remmers
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response 21 of 52:
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Apr 7 01:37 UTC 1994 |
Should work in ksh, bash, and tcsh too, since they're all extensions of
sh or csh.
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remmers
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response 22 of 52:
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Apr 7 01:39 UTC 1994 |
I discovered, with mixed emotions, that the "less" pager mungs ANSI
codes and backspaces. This may or may not be a good thing.
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davel
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response 23 of 52:
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Apr 7 10:13 UTC 1994 |
Can you be more specific?
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remmers
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response 24 of 52:
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Apr 7 12:21 UTC 1994 |
Control characters show up as "visible" -- e.g. if there's a backspace
character in a response, "less" displays ^H rather than moving the
cursor left. Maybe there's an option that changes this, but I don't
have time to RTFM right now.
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