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- Installation notes for hint
-
- To allow people to disable write and talk messages but still allow
- hints, hint does not use the mesg bit to determine write permission.
- Instead, it uses the group-execute bit of the tty. However, because
- setting this bit does not actually give write permission, hint must run
- setuid to root. This ensures that running the hint program is the only
- interface which can activate write permission for hints; that is
- important, because not only must the permission bit be set, but an
- entry in the file /usr/local/lib/hinttab must also be updated.
-
- A companion program, clearhint, is provided for systems where
- "tput dsl" is not available to clear the status line.
-
- For people with Wyse 50 terminals, the standard termcap files often don't
- have the status line capabilities defined, and the Quick Reference Guide
- that comes with the terminal isn't of much help either. For a status
- line on the bottom, use:
- :hs:es:ds=\Ef\r:fs=\r:ts=\Ef:ws#78:
-
- For a short status line on the top, use:
- :hs:es:ds=\EF \r:fs=\r:ts=\EF:ws#46:
-
- For a flash instead of a beep (this works for vi also):
- :vb=\E`8\E`9:
-
- Terminfo users will need to adapt these.
-
- A brief history of hint is approximately as follows:
-
- -Originally written by Paul Borman, for the Heath/Zenith 29 terminal only.
- -Rewritten by Mike Haertel, still for the H29 only.
- -Simple terminal independence added by Walter Poxon and Jon Westbrock.
- -Rewritten from scratch by David MacKenzie with an improved terminal
- independence system and other enhancements.
-
- David MacKenzie <edf@rocky2.rockefeller.edu>
-