Reading Gnu-Screen Logs with Vim

Reading gnu-screen logs with vim

To provide an answer here and finally mark this fixed: The AnsiEsc plugin adds syntax highlighting for ANSI color sequences. So instead of seeing ^[[30m; the following text will be highlighting in the corresponding color, just like when using less --raw-control-chars.

When using vim or less in gnu screen, quitting vim or less leaves a lingering imprint

screen's altscreen (alternate screen) feature is turned off by default.

Add this to your .screenrc:

altscreen on

See: http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/screen.html#Redisplay

Running Vim in GNU Screen: How to avoid Shift+left/right to delete characters

You may need to run screen with a different TERM, such as xterm, e.g.

$ screen -T xterm
...

Why is the default vim's background option is differrent when run in gnome-terminal and gnu-screen?

vim's using an escape sequence from xterm's repertoire to ask what the background color is, which you can see in the block in term.c beginning with the comment

    /* Check for background color response from the terminal:
     *
     *       {lead}11;rgb:{rrrr}/{gggg}/{bbbb}{tail}
     *
     * {lead} can be <Esc>] or OSC
     * {tail} can be '\007', <Esc>\ or STERM.

culminating in some code (which I'd recommend rewriting...):

            {/* TODO: don't set option when already the right value */
                LOG_TR("Received RBG");
                rbg_status = RBG_GOT;
                set_option_value((char_u *)"bg", 0L, (char_u *)(
                    (3 * '6' < tp[j+7] + tp[j+12] + tp[j+17])
                     ? "light" : "dark"), 0);

which was added in mid-2015:

commit b5c3265521749fda81ae4b052de35a0d1209cf50                                 
Author: Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org>                                           
Date:   Thu Jun 25 17:03:36 2015 +0200                                          

    patch 7.4.757                                                               
    Problem:    Cannot detect the background color of a terminal.               
    Solution:   Add T_RBG to request the background color if possible. (Lubomir 
                Rintel)

xterm patch #94 (March 1999) added the control sequence for querying colors:

extend dynamic colors control sequences to allow users to determine the colors and font which are currently active.

VTE's developers copied the feature early in 2014 (see #567444).

But GNU screen doesn't recognize the sequence (or its response), so it doesn't allow it to pass through.

By the way, there's more than one way that vim could have done this. I checked to see which method it used with strace.

Vim background with gnu screen

[filling in for the OP, see the comment]

The OP found the issue:

I needed to have this set:

defbce "on"

This forces background colours to refresh.

"Change background-color-erase setting. If bce is set to “on”, all characters cleared by an erase/insert/scroll/clear operation will be displayed in the current background color. Otherwise the default background color is used."

– Ravi 19 hours ago

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