256 color terminal in basic (non-"X Windows") Cygwin

Gwen Morse gwen.morse@gmail.com
Tue Aug 25 09:27:00 GMT 2009


I use a game client called Tinyfugue that can make use of ANSI 256 color codes.

I've been running in mental circles trying to find (or patch and
compile) a terminal that will support 256 under regular cygwin. I
can't use XWindows because I often run my client off a USB stick and
I'm limited to what I can carry on it (basically the bare minimum of
dlls hand-copied to get the app running).

I started out trying to use Putty for Cygwin. After reading the
minimal documentation I ended up stalled because I couldn't find
directions on how to use it to call another program via the command
line. Maybe I just missed them.

Then, I tried using rxvt. This runs nicely off my usb stick, however,
it doesn't come with 256 color support compiled in. I downloaded the
source files through the Cygwin setup program, applied the 256 color
patch (I think) and rebuilt it. I tried using both "-tn
xterm-256color" and "-tn rxvt-256color" options. Neither gives me 256
colors when I use the built-in testcolor call. In fact, I don't even
get 16 colors. I get the 8 basic colors but the "bright" options are
disabled. But, it is very nice to have a working terminal and I'll
stick with it for now.

I tried looking into xterm, but, it supposedly needs XWindows, so, I'm
not even bothering to test it.

What I need: a terminal program that can be built to run under cygwin
that supports 265 colors and where that feature actually _works_. If
it has any config files it needs, there needs to be a command-line (or
batch file parameter setting) that will let me tell it where to find
the file on my usb stick. It can't need Xwindows to run. If it needs
to be built from source I can do it myself.

If rxvt "should" work properly once the patch is applied, I would
appreciate help to figure out where that patching went wrong.

Really, any help on this would be appreciated.

Gwen

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