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Configuring the Terminal Emulator Window and Menus

The NCD Terminal Emulator window provides the same features as an ASCII terminal. The window displays 24 or 25 lines of text in 80 or 132 columns, and you can resize it to display fewer or more rows (changing the height) or columns (changing the width).

The size of the window is affected by several factors, including the font used, escape sequences sent to the terminal emulator (described later), menu selections from the menu bar, and X resource specifications.

In addition, you can use character attributes to make text stand out or to protect fields. You can also choose the cursor.

NCD Terminal Emulator windows provide additional features not found on traditional terminals, including a scroll bar and menu bar.

Terminal Emulator Fonts

The font you choose for a terminal emulator window is important. It controls the size of the characters you see as well as whether certain terminal emulation features appear to work. If you do not know which font to choose, use the default selected by the terminal emulator.

Fonts are specified using a set of X resources: foundry, family, pointSize, and subFont. Together with the Fonts menu in the menu bar, these resources control the actual X font used in the display. See "The Fonts Menu" for more information about fonts.

Terminal Emulator Scroll Bars

Scroll bars allow review of information that has passed off the screen. The ability to see past information is affected by some escape sequences (such as those that clear certain regions of the screen) and by how much information the terminal emulator can store.

Scrolling affects terminal memory usage. For more information about scrolling and memory usage, see the description of the saveLines resource in the ncdterm(1) man page.

To turn off the scroll bars or change their location, use the scrollbar resource, also described in the ncdterm(1) man page.

Terminal Emulator Menus

The menu bar provides access to menus for controlling other terminal emulation features. The menu bar can be disabled using the menuBar resource.

Five menus are accessible from the menu bar: File, Options, Fonts, Cursors, and Keys.

The File Menu

Table 12-2 summarizes the commands in the File menu.

Table 12-2 File Menu
Menu Item
Action
Redraw Redraws the contents of the display window.
Soft Reset Resets the terminal to the default state.
Hard Reset Does a soft reset, deletes all content, and clears any selection.
Close Connection Closes the current session and returns to the Terminal Host Chooser. This item can be disabled using the disableExits resource. For more information, see the ncdterm(1) man page.
Start Debugging Log Writes the contents of the session to a log file. This function requires special setup to execute correctly. For more information, see the ncdterm(1) man page.
Print on Serial Line 1 Specifies the serial port to be used for printing.

Serial line 1 is the Auxiliary serial port. If an ESP board is installed, serial line 2 is the serial port on the ESP board. If a Y connector is in use on an ESP board, the A connector is serial port 2 and the B connector is serial port 3.

For terminals with more than one serial port, you can specify the default port by setting the defaultHost resource to the port number. The port can be specified in either of the following forms: n, serial n, or serial/n. For example, you can specify serial port 3 as 3, serial 3, or serial/3.

Print on Serial Line 2
Print on Serial Line 3
Print on Remote Unit NCD_name:port Sends print output to a printer attached to another NCD terminal. The terminal and port are specified using the printerHost resource. Remote printing is supported over TCP/IP.
Print on Parallel Line 1 Sends print output to parallel port 1.
Print on Parallel Line 2 Sends print output to parallel port 2 (on terminals with more than one parallel port).
Print Screen Prints the contents of the display window.
Print Log Buffer Prints the contents of the log buffer (the input and output you can see by scrolling). Printing starts at the top visible line and extends through the end of the buffer.
Print Selection Prints selected text in the display window.
Send Break Sends a break character.
Exit Exits from the session. This item can be disabled using the disableExits resource. For more information, see the ncdterm(1) man page.

The Options Menu

The Options menu offers a variety of terminal mode settings. The selections are all toggles. Options that are set are indicated by filled-in toggle buttons. The initial states of the Options menu selections are controlled by resources.

Table 12-3 summarizes the Options menu modes and names the associated resources.

Table 12-3 Options Menu and Associated Resources
Menu Item
Resource Name
Action
Menu Bar menuBar Enables the menu bar.
Jump Scroll jumpScroll Enables the terminal emulator to add lines to the screen quickly.
Reverse Video reverseVideo Reverses the foreground and background. For example, if your terminal is displaying dark characters on a light background, reverse video displays light characters on a dark background.
Visual Bell visualBell Specifies flashing instead of an audible bell.
Auto Wraparound autoWrap Specifies that the character typed after the cursor reaches the right border of the page automatically appears on the next line. By default, autowrap is enabled. If autowrap is turned off, a character typed after the cursor reaches the right border replaces the character at the end of the line.
Reverse Wraparound reverseWrap Allows the cursor to wrap from the leftmost column on the line to the rightmost column of the previous line, allowing you to backspace to the previous line.
Auto Linefeed autoLineFeed Generates a linefeed automatically. This is for use with programs that generate carriage returns without dropping down a line on the screen.
Application Cursor Mode appCursorMode Generates ANSI escape sequences rather than standard cursor movements when you use arrow keys.
Application Keypad Mode appKeypadMode Generates control functions rather than numeric characters when the keypad is used.
Local Flow Control localFlowControl Determines whether flow control characters (such as Ctrl-S) are passed to the host. By default, local flow control is enabled. If local flow control is disabled, flow control characters are passed to the host.
Allow 80/132 Switching c132 Allows the terminal emulator to display in the 132-column format required by some applications.
80/132 Font Switching useCondensedFont Switches from the default font to a condensed font upon receipt of the control sequence that changes the terminal emulator from 80- to 132-column mode.
Clear Screen With Blanks clearScreenWithBlanks Specifies whether the terminal emulator clears the screen by erasing the entire screen or by inserting a screen full of blanks. Enabling this option allows scrolling to previously displayed information on terminals connected to certain hosts. The drawback to using this option is that it may use up the save-line buffer quickly. The default is "false," which clears the screen by erasing.
Curses Emulation curses Emulates a bug in the UNIX curses screen-handling package.
Margin Bell marginBell Rings a bell when the cursor reaches the margin.
Strip Parity stripParity Strips parity from any data sent from the host so that the terminal emulator looks only at seven-bit bytes.
Grab Keyboard Input secureKeyboard Directs keyboard input to the terminal emulator window. Prevents another user from seeing key events being sent to the window.
ISO Latin 1 Font latin1Font Enables use of the ISO Latin Alphabet supplemental character set, which includes letters with accents and diacritical marks required in many European languages.
Blink Cursor blinkCursor Specifies whether the cursor should blink.
Visible Status Line statusLine Displays a 25th line at the bottom of the window, used by applications to display status information.
Log Output to File Not applicable Logs output to the file opened from the File menu. If no file is available for output logging, the item is not active in the Options menu.

The Fonts Menu

The Fonts menu allows you to change the size of the display font dynamically. The fonts generated through the Fonts menu are defined using a single set of resource specifications. The specification set defines the "Default" menu selection, and the terminal emulator uses the Default to generate the other sizes offered through the menu. The default font is: 


-*-terminal-medium-*-normal--*-140-*-*-*-*-*-1

Table 12-4 lists the choices available through the menu and the resources for defining the Default item.

Table 12-4 Fonts Menu and Associated Resources
Menu Item
Resource Names
Font Selected
Default foundry, family pointSize, subFont: 14 point
foundry The developer of the font; for example, adobe. Default: * (the wildcard character, which ensures that any foundry matches the font request)
family The family name; for example, courier. Default: terminal
pointSize The point size of the Default menu selection (in tenths of a point). Default: 140
subFont The substitute font used if the requested font cannot be found; should be one of the built-in fonts. Default: 8x13
Small Not applicable 10.5 point
Large Not applicable 14 point
Jumbo Not applicable 18 point

The Cursors Menu

The Cursors menu allows you to change the terminal emulator's cursor by selecting one of the descriptions in the menu.

You can also press Shift-MB3 (mouse button 3) to shift through the nine different types of cursors available.

The Keys Menu

The Keys menu (Keys -> Keymap Editor) provides access to the Keymap Editor (see "Configuring Key Translations").

Selecting in the Window

You can select arbitrary rectangular sections of an NCD Terminal Emulator window to cut and paste:

The rectangularCutLineTerminator resource allows you to specify the terminator added to the end of each line of the rectangular selection. The default terminator is \n, which inserts a carriage return followed by a linefeed.


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