console update

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Hi,

a new console tar file has arrived at alpha.gnu.org.  This snapshot
features:

* External plugin support.  Currently still with the rpath to
  /lib/hurd/0.3/console/, but I will change this according to Roland's
  suggestion on hurd-devel later.  This means you must do make install
  before running the client.  vga, keyboard and speaker driver are currently
  loaded automatically, configuration is not possible (yet).

* Support for 512 glyphs and 8 colors instead 256 glyphs and 16 colors.
  On by default (for now edit display-vga.c, vga_display_init() to get the
  other mode).

* Support for dynamic allocation of line graphic characters.  This means
  that there will be no gaps between horizontal line graphic glyphs in your
  unicode font.  In 256 glyph mode, up to 32 different horizontal line graphic
  characters are displayed, in 512 glyph mode up to 64.

  This means of course that those font slots are not available for normal
  glyphs.  This is currently the default, but an 8-pixel width font mode
  will be supported which disables this feature.

* Robustness.  I fixed a bug in the virtual console switching in libcons, and
  now it should be quite robust in that regard.  ALT+Fx and ALT+CrsrRight
  and ALT+CrsrLeft are supported for virtual console switching.  Some bugs
  in the dynamic glyph allocation have been fixed, so that it does not fail if
  you try to display more than available.

* Support for different font heights than 16.  The vertical gap between the
  font characters in each row is closed now by setting the font width on the
  graphic card.  The problem is that this makes the screen smaller.  In
  other words, if you use the included 8x13 unicode font, the screen mode
  will be somewhat around 80x30, but only the first 25 lines will be used.
  This makes the lower part of the screen not to be used at all, which looks
  confusing and wrong.  But it makes for much nicer box drawings :) because
  the vertical lines are continuous.

  I am not sure what is the best way out of this.  I think that maybe the
  console should automatically choose the right number of lines and resize the
  console accordingly.  Or we do it externally, and calculate the desired
  font size according to the video mode, like svgatextmode does.  Or we just
  make a good 8x16 unicode font, which is a lot of work.  This needs more
  thought.

Next version should support screen flashing on VGA, have the ncursesw
backend integrated, support some argument line parsing and options, and
might at some time even restore your video card properly at termination ;)

You need the latest Hurd CVS for this version.  If you feel brave, give it a
try and set up your ttys according to earlier instructions which I gave for
the ncurses client, and then just run "console-console /dev/vts" or
whereever you have your console server running.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/