Cursor problems with some applications in linux console

[David Woodfall]

I'm using the 1/3 block cursor in a plain linux console, set by a
control code (\e[?3c).

I find that a few applications (vim, mutt, moc, finch, calcurse)
reset my cursor back to the thin underline, which is very hard to
see. And the cursor will affect all other screen windows too.

With vim I can set a custom cursor when I start it and exit, so
that's not so much of a problem. With mutt I can stop it resetting
the cursor by giving it a fake TERM of xterm-color when I start it.
However, I haven't managed to find a similar workaround for calcurse,
moc and finch.

I've tried different init and reset strings in termcapinfo, but I
can't seem to find the magic setting that stops the cursor resetting.

A diff between xterm-color and linux.screen terminfos has pointed at
the differences, but using those hasn't helped, unless I'm setting it
wrong.

Is there a brute-force method of stopping cursor resets like this?

I realise that applications usually look better when the cursor is
hidden for drawing menus and such. Other applications like less, lynx
and elinks don't seem to have this problem (although elinks uses an
option to put the cursor at bottom right of the screen, out of view.)

Any ideas about this would be most helpful indeed.

Thanks

--
Dave

There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know
nothing about.

                                                            .--.  oo
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