From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

I have just migrated to another computer, and alpine works as it did on
the computer I came from. The only problem I have is that the cursor on
the alpine screen and in pico is hardly visible: the background is light
grey and the cursor is a white rectangle. There are many choices of colors
in alpine's K settings but I did not find how to set the color (or form,
or blinking) of the cursor.
--
Helmut Richter
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Helmut Richter <hr.usenet@email.de> wrote:

I have just migrated to another computer, and alpine works as it did on
the computer I came from. The only problem I have is that the cursor on
the alpine screen and in pico is hardly visible: the background is light >grey and the cursor is a white rectangle. There are many choices of colors >in alpine's K settings but I did not find how to set the color (or form,
or blinking) of the cursor.

I've always set this in the terminal emulation.
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 20 May 2026, Helmut Richter wrote:

I have just migrated to another computer, and alpine works as it did on
the computer I came from. The only problem I have is that the cursor on
the alpine screen and in pico is hardly visible: the background is light
grey and the cursor is a white rectangle. There are many choices of colors
in alpine's K settings but I did not find how to set the color (or form,
or blinking) of the cursor.

The color of the cursor is the same as the color of normal text. When you press "M S K", this is the first setting in the "General Colors" section.

There is a setting for switching the cursor for an arrow in the setup configuration screen:

[X] Force Arrow Cursor

I do not know how to change blinking to solid, or viceversa.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 20 May 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

Date: Wed, 20 May 2026 18:00:57
From: Eduardo Chappa <chappa@washington.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.mail.pine
Subject: Re: (nearly) invisible cursor

On Wed, 20 May 2026, Helmut Richter wrote:

I have just migrated to another computer, and alpine works as it did on
the computer I came from. The only problem I have is that the cursor on
the alpine screen and in pico is hardly visible: the background is light grey and the cursor is a white rectangle. There are many choices of colors in alpine's K settings but I did not find how to set the color (or form,
or blinking) of the cursor.

The color of the cursor is the same as the color of normal text. When you press "M S K", this is the first setting in the "General Colors" section.

After "M S K", the screen reads (all black on white):

Color Style
Set Rule Values
--- ----------------------
( ) no-color
(*) use-termdef
( ) force-ansi-8color
( ) force-ansi-16color
( ) force-xterm-256color

Current Indexline Style
Set Rule Values
--- ----------------------
(*) flip-colors (default)
( ) reverse
( ) reverse-fg
( ) reverse-fg-no-ambiguity
( ) reverse-bg
( ) reverse-bg-no-ambiguity

Titlebar Color Style
Set Rule Values
--- ----------------------
(*) default (default)
( ) indexline
( ) reverse-indexline

--------------
GENERAL COLORS
--------------

Normal Color [Default]

---- end of "screenshot"

After that, there are colours (red, yellow, ...) defined for special
purposes rCo everything there looks fine and works well.

With these settings, I get the following behaviour:

Before calling alpine, I get the colours defined by the system (I normally never change colours unless necessary). Here, in the terminal offered by
Ubuntu 26.04, the default colour is a deep purple background with white
letters on it. They offer me also ten or so other styles, but all white on dark, which I find weird as *only* option. But this works quite well for me: the dark background shows me that I am typing shell commands, not data.

When I call alpine, it comes up with a light grey background with black
letters on it. I don't know where I asked for this easily readable design,
but I do like it. Everything okay. But the cursor is white rCo maybe a reminiscent of the white-on-purple design of the terminal outside alpine.
Thus, it is not true that "the color of the cursor is the same as the color
of normal text". This is the situation when I asked.

Selecting "no-color" makes alpine use white-on-purple like the terminal.
This is inconvenient for reading and editing longer contiguous portions of text.

There is a setting for switching the cursor for an arrow in the setup configuration screen:

[X] Force Arrow Cursor

I do not know how to change blinking to solid, or viceversa.

This is a matter of taste, not relevant for work. I am happy when I can *see* the cursor, no matter what it looks like.

I still have no idea of what to do.

(There are work-arounds. In short texts I can find the cursor, and for
editing longer texts like this one I switch to emacs which comes up with functioning black-on-white including the cursor.)

--
Helmut Richter
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 20 May 2026, Helmut Richter wrote:

After "M S K", the screen reads (all black on white):

Color Style
Set Rule Values
--- ----------------------
( ) no-color
(*) use-termdef
( ) force-ansi-8color
( ) force-ansi-16color
( ) force-xterm-256color
[...]
Thus, it is not true that "the color of the cursor is the same as the color of normal text". This is the situation when I asked.

Please read the following text about how you have configured Alpine, and follow up in the technical notes if needed.

use-termdef
In order to decide if your terminal is capable of color, Alpine
looks in the terminal capabilities database, TERMINFO or TERMCAP,
depending on how Alpine was compiled. This is a good option to
choose if you switch between a color and a non-color terminal with
the same Alpine configuration. Alpine will know to use color on the
color terminal because it is described in the termcap entry, and
Alpine will know to use black and white on the non-color terminal.
The Alpine Technical Notes, distributed with the source code of
Alpine have more information on configuring a TERMCAP or TERMINFO
entry for color Alpine. This is usually something a system
administrator does.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 20 May 2026, Helmut Richter wrote:

After "M S K", the screen reads (all black on white):

Color Style
Set Rule Values
--- ----------------------
( ) no-color
(*) use-termdef
( ) force-ansi-8color
( ) force-ansi-16color
( ) force-xterm-256color
[...]
Thus, it is not true that "the color of the cursor is the same as the color of normal text". This is the situation when I asked.

Please read the following text about how you have configured Alpine, and follow up in the technical notes if needed.

use-termdef
In order to decide if your terminal is capable of color, Alpine
looks in the terminal capabilities database, TERMINFO or TERMCAP,
depending on how Alpine was compiled. This is a good option to
choose if you switch between a color and a non-color terminal with
the same Alpine configuration. Alpine will know to use color on the
color terminal because it is described in the termcap entry, and
Alpine will know to use black and white on the non-color terminal.
The Alpine Technical Notes, distributed with the source code of
Alpine have more information on configuring a TERMCAP or TERMINFO
entry for color Alpine. This is usually something a system
administrator does.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 20 May 2026, Helmut Richter wrote:

After "M S K", the screen reads (all black on white):

Color Style
Set Rule Values
--- ----------------------
( ) no-color
(*) use-termdef
( ) force-ansi-8color
( ) force-ansi-16color
( ) force-xterm-256color
[...]
Thus, it is not true that "the color of the cursor is the same as the color of normal text". This is the situation when I asked.

Please read the following text about how you have configured Alpine, and follow up in the technical notes if needed.

use-termdef
In order to decide if your terminal is capable of color, Alpine
looks in the terminal capabilities database, TERMINFO or TERMCAP,
depending on how Alpine was compiled. This is a good option to
choose if you switch between a color and a non-color terminal with
the same Alpine configuration. Alpine will know to use color on the
color terminal because it is described in the termcap entry, and
Alpine will know to use black and white on the non-color terminal.
The Alpine Technical Notes, distributed with the source code of
Alpine have more information on configuring a TERMCAP or TERMINFO
entry for color Alpine. This is usually something a system
administrator does.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On 2026-05-20 11:34, Helmut Richter wrote:

I have just migrated to another computer, and alpine works as it did on
the computer I came from. The only problem I have is that the cursor on
the alpine screen and in pico is hardly visible: the background is light
grey and the cursor is a white rectangle. There are many choices of colors
in alpine's K settings but I did not find how to set the color (or form,
or blinking) of the cursor.

Assuming Linux.

Possibly your distribution applied a customization package to Alpine.
This can be the Alpine package itself, or an add on package.

openSUSE for instance has "Alpine" and "alpine-branding-openSUSE".
packages. I don't install the later.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
ESEfc-Efc+, EUEfc-Efc|;
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