[Alpine-info] Recent changes with alpine/screen causing status bars to be italic

[via Alpine-info]

> I noticed recently that when running alpine under TERM=screen, that all 

> the normal prompts which would display in inverse video, like the 

> statusbar highlight, instead display in italic.  (This seems to happen 

> even if you’re not running under gnu screen).

>

> Have there been any recent code changes that would cause this?


This is almost certainly due to a change in your base OS's 
termcap/terminfo config.

I've noticed the same thing on recent FreeBSD versions.

TL;DR: try running alpine as "TERM=tmux alpine" and see if that fixes it. 
(Note, you do not have to actually run tmux; you can use TERM=tmux inside 
of GNU screen, or in just a raw terminal without screen or tmux.)

Longer story: the terminal capability in play here is "standout".  Under 
termcap, "so" enters standout mode, and "se" exits standout mode.  (Under 
terminfo, it's "smso" and "rmso" respectively.  But I will stick to 
termcap below as I'm olde-fashioned; adjusting for terminfo systems is 
left as an exercise.)

Looking at my system's /etc/termcap, I see:

SC|screen|VT 100/ANSI X3.64 virtual terminal:\
         :[...lines elided...]
         :nw=\EE:op=\E[39;49m:rc=\E8:rs=\Ec:sc=\E7:se=\E[23m:sf=\n:\
         :so=\E[3m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:te=\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:\
 	:[...more lines elided...]

And just a bit farther down:

tmux|tmux terminal multiplexer:\
         :so=\E[7m:se=\E[27m:\
         :tc=ecma+italics:tc=screen:

The "so" entry for terminal type "screen" sends the ANSI escape sequence 
to enable italics: <ESC>[3m

And following that, we see that the terminal type "tmux" inherits from 
"screen" but then overrides the so/se properties, sending the ANSI escape 
sequence for reverse-video instead: <ESC>[7m

We want to use that latter escape sequence for so (and the analagous 27m 
to cancel it).

Several methods are available to configure things the way we want:

* Just set TERM=tmux for everything, in perpetuity, and not worry about 
it.

* Modify the system /etc/termcap (if possible), and change so/se for 
"screen".

* Modify screenrc (either your personal, or the system-wide one) and 
override the termcap properties for so/se.

* Set a custom "TERMCAP" environment variable for "screen" which basically 
copies the system one but overrides so/se.  Add this to either your 
personal shell prefs or to the system-wide shell prefs.


When creating or modifying system-wide files, consider future OS upgrades: 
your changes may get overwritten, or else may prevent installing upgraded 
versions of your OS's standard config files.


Good luck.


  -Jason