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Missing manpage colors w/ most v5.2.0

On slackware64 -current when using most v5.2.0 as manpager, manpages show only B/W and bold, no colors. If I install most v5.1.0, colors are present. Using MacOS terminal app to connect to Slackware server.

tia for any ideas/suggestions!

Code:

# export|grep PAGER

declare -x MANPAGER="most"

declare -x PAGER="most"



# export|grep color

declare -x LS_OPTIONS="-F -b -T 0 --color=auto"

declare -x TERM="xterm-256color"



# export|grep COLOR

declare -x LS_COLORS="no=00:fi=00:di=01;34:ln=01;36:pi=40;33:so=01;35:do=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:su=37;41:sg=30;43:ca=30;41:tw=30;42:ow=34;42:st=37;44:ex=01;32:*.bat=01;32:*.btm=01;32:*.cmd=01;32:*.com=01;32:*.dll=01;32:*.exe=01;32:*.7z=01;31:*.ace=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.dz=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.jar=01;31:*.lha=01;31:*.lz=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.rar=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.rz=01;31:*.tar=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.tb2=01;31:*.tbz2=01;31:*.tbz=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.tlz=01;31:*.trz=01;31:*.txz=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.tz2=01;31:*.tzst=01;31:*.xz=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.zst=01;31:*.aac=01;35:*.anx=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.au=01;35:*.axa=01;35:*.axv=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.divx=01;35:*.flac=01;35:*.flv=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.ico=01;35:*.jpg=01;35:*.jpeg=01;35:*.m2a=01;35:*.m2t=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.m4a=01;35:*.m4p=01;35:*.m4v=01;35:*.mid=01;35:*.midi=01;35:*.mka=01;35:*.mkv=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.mp3=01;35:*.mp4=01;35:*.mp4v=01;35:*.mpc=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.nuv=01;35:*.oga=01;35:*.ogv=01;35:*.ogx=01;35:*.ogg=01;35:*.opus=01;35:*.pbm=01;35:*.pgm=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.qt=01;35:*.ra=01;35:*.ram=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.spx=01;35:*.svg=01;35:*.svgz=01;35:*.tga=01;35:*.tif=01;35:*.tiff=01;35:*.vob=01;35:*.wav=01;35:*.webm=01;35:*.webp=01;35:*.wma=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xcf=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.xspf=01;35:*.xwd=01;35:*.xvid=01;35:"

most v5.2.0 made some color-related changes such as supporting "truecolor", so I'd guess that's likely related to the issue, but I can't figure out if there's anything I can do to get colors to show up again with v5.2.0.

From the most changelog:

Changes since 5.1.0
1. src/most.c: Ignore empty filenames on the command line

2. src/cmd.c: Changed /* drop */ to /* fall through */ to avoid a gcc-8 warning in a switch statement

3. src/keyparse.c,line.c: Add support for the embedded default forground/background escape sequences (e.g., \e[39;49m)

4. src/buffer.h,...: Changed various integer sizes to better support files larger than 4 GB.

5. Additional changes involving int -> MOST_INT were required.

6. src/Makefile.in: Avoid a race condition when performing a parallel build (Sergei Trofimovich)

7. src/color.c: Added support for true-color terminals. If you have a terminal that supports true-color, and you are on a 64 bit system with a recent version of the slang library, then set the environment variable COLORTERM to "truecolor", i.e.,
export COLORTERM=truecolor

8. Added pseudo-truecolor support for terminals that provide only the basic 16 colors by mapping the desired truecolor to the nearest 16 color version.

9. src/line.c: Fixed a bug that caused a character following a 0-width character not be be displayed (reported by MalteHei)

10. color.c: Support color escape sequences that use the colon character as a delimiter

11. src/color.c: An unspecifed FG or BG color was not getting properly mapped to the default color

12. Updated copyright years

13. Better support for 256 color terminals; added additional test file

MAC:

Code:

export COLORTERM="truecolor"

export TERM="xterm-256color"

Slack:

Code:

ldd $(which most)

Look for libslang in the output and ensure it's a recent version.

Check these ^^ if are ok and if work. if not:

Code:

man -P "most -C" ls

By running this command, you're directing man to use most as the pager and forcing it to enable color with the -C flag. This can help ensure color support in environments where it's not automatically enabled or might be bypassed.
If not working again... even with the -C flag, probably the problem might be deeper, possibly related to terminal configuration, environment variables, or even a specific issue with most. In such cases idk...

@rizitis thanks for the ideas! Didn't help so far unfortunately. I tried both from MacOS terminal and also directly on terminal console on the Linux machine (using ipmi), same results. I assume other -current users will be able to reproduce and maybe one of them will eventually report a solution when -current ships.

Code:

$ export|grep -i color

declare -x COLORTERM="truecolor"

declare -x LS_COLORS="no=00:fi=00:di=01;34:ln=01;36:pi=40;33:so=01;35:do=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:su=37;41:sg=30;43:ca=30;41:tw=30;42:ow=34;42:st=37;44:ex=01;32:*.bat=01;32:*.btm=01;32:*.cmd=01;32:*.com=01;32:*.dll=01;32:*.exe=01;32:*.7z=01;31:*.ace=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.dz=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.jar=01;31:*.lha=01;31:*.lz=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.rar=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.rz=01;31:*.tar=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.tb2=01;31:*.tbz2=01;31:*.tbz=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.tlz=01;31:*.trz=01;31:*.txz=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.tz2=01;31:*.tzst=01;31:*.xz=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.zst=01;31:*.aac=01;35:*.anx=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.au=01;35:*.axa=01;35:*.axv=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.divx=01;35:*.flac=01;35:*.flv=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.ico=01;35:*.jpg=01;35:*.jpeg=01;35:*.m2a=01;35:*.m2t=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.m4a=01;35:*.m4p=01;35:*.m4v=01;35:*.mid=01;35:*.midi=01;35:*.mka=01;35:*.mkv=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.mp3=01;35:*.mp4=01;35:*.mp4v=01;35:*.mpc=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.nuv=01;35:*.oga=01;35:*.ogv=01;35:*.ogx=01;35:*.ogg=01;35:*.opus=01;35:*.pbm=01;35:*.pgm=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.qt=01;35:*.ra=01;35:*.ram=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.spx=01;35:*.svg=01;35:*.svgz=01;35:*.tga=01;35:*.tif=01;35:*.tiff=01;35:*.vob=01;35:*.wav=01;35:*.webm=01;35:*.webp=01;35:*.wma=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xcf=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.xspf=01;35:*.xwd=01;35:*.xvid=01;35:"

declare -x LS_OPTIONS="-F -b -T 0 --color=auto"

declare -x TERM="xterm-256color"



$ ldd $(which most)

        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff1f3b3000)

        libslang.so.2 => /usr/lib64/libslang.so.2 (0x00007fdd8d400000)

        libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x00007fdd8d7c6000)

        libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007fdd8d000000)

        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fdd8d8de000)

Works fine on Slackware64-15.0

I built and installed most v5.2.0 on Slackware64-15.0.

Colors work fine in that case, strange.

Same issue here. Man pages used to display in color with MOST. I just built most-5.1.0 and most-5.2.0 locally from upstream, and 5.1.0 works while 5.2.0 does not. There's an issue filed on it here https://github.com/jedsoft/most/issues/9 yet none of the fixes work.

Somehow related to truecolor support in Slackware

@jayjwa interesting, it's something about truecolor for sure. Running the command from that GitHub issue (`./x86_64objs/most ../testfiles/truecolor.txt`) in the `most` source gives good color results on Slackware 15.0 (where most 5.2.0 works fine with color), and missing color results on Slackware -current (where most 5.2.0 has no color).