Color Man Pages?

**LewsTherinTelemon** · 21-May-2009, 17:40

I'm likely over complicating this, but how do you enable color in man pages? I've tried exporting the below values in .bashrc and also setting my pager to most - neither seems to work.

.bashrc contains

Less Colors for Man Pages
export LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$'\E[01;31m' # begin blinking
export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\E[01;38;5;74m' # begin bold
export LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\E[0m' # end mode
export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$'\E[0m' # end standout-mode
export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\E[38;5;246m' # begin standout-mode - info box
export LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$'\E[0m' # end underline
export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\E[04;38;5;146m' # begin underline

I also tried adding the following form colored manpages - nion's blog

alias man="TERMINFO=~/.terminfo/ LESS=C TERM=mostlike PAGER=less man"

(Compiled mostlike and used the above)

I also compiled most and exported PAGER=most

Nothing really seems to work.

Am I missing something obvious here?

Cheers,
Pete

**LewsTherinTelemon** · 21-May-2009, 17:44

ah **** - the last solution (compiling and installing most and export PAGER=most in .bashrc works now, resourcing didn't work, just need to reopen terminal.)

You can download the most pager from here: MOST Pager Download Page

However, I really wonder why the first solution (exporting the various termcap settings) does not work. Any one know why?

Pete

**LewsTherinTelemon** · 21-May-2009, 18:08

Oddly, I found that one must install termcap for the export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\E[01;38;5;74m' # begin bold and such statements to have a chance or working.

Wow, weird

However, despite having termcap installed, exporting LESS_TERMCAP values still don't work. Very odd.

paracelsus@Callandor:~> less --version
less 424
Copyright (C) 1984-2008 Mark Nudelman

Still rather weird - it works so easily on CentOS.

**cjcox** · 22-May-2009, 10:26

On Fri, 2009-05-22 at 00:16 +0000, LewsTherinTelemon wrote:
> Oddly, I found that one must install termcap for the export
> LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\E[01;38;5;74m' # begin bold and such statements to
> have a chance or working.
>
> Wow, weird

>
> However, despite having termcap installed, exporting LESS_TERMCAP
> values still don't work. Very odd.
>
> paracelsus@Callandor:~> less --version
> less 424
> Copyright (C) 1984-2008 Mark Nudelman
>
> Still rather weird - it works so easily on CentOS.
>
>

I just tried these:

export LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$'\E[01;31m' # begin blinking
export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\E[01;31m' # begin bold
export LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\E[0m' # end mode
export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$'\E[0m' # end standout-mode
export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\E[01;44;33m' # begin standout-mode - info box
export LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$'\E[0m' # end underline
export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\E[01;32m' # begin underline

works fine for me.

**LewsTherinTelemon** · 22-May-2009, 16:23

Would you mind telling me what you have in your .bashrc and and /etc/profile exactly and the following displays?

paracelsus@Callandor:~> env | grep -i term
LESS_TERMCAP_mb=
LESS_TERMCAP_md=
LESS_TERMCAP_me=
TERM=xterm
LESS_TERMCAP_ue=
LESS_TERMCAP_us=
LESS_TERMCAP_so=
LESS_TERMCAP_se=
COLORTERM=1

Strange as it should work but does not seem to for me. Must have something off in /etc/profile I am thinking.

Cheers,
Pete

**LewsTherinTelemon** · 22-May-2009, 16:37

I should have stated that the env variables are displayed as below (as they just call the color escape sequences)

paracelsus@Callandor:~> env | grep -i term
LESS_TERMCAP_mb=
LESS_TERMCAP_md= (displays in red)
LESS_TERMCAP_me= (displays in blue)
TERM=xterm
LESS_TERMCAP_ue=
LESS_TERMCAP_us=
LESS_TERMCAP_so= (displays in grey)
LESS_TERMCAP_se=
COLORTERM=1

They show up okay for me when I show them with env | grep -i term but they don't actually work in displaying the man pages with less as the pager, etc.

Cheers,
Pete

**ken_yap** · 22-May-2009, 19:23

Looking at the man page for less, I don't see any documentation that suggests that these kinds of environment variables are accepted by the standard less on openSUSE. Maybe they work in a modified or cutting edge version of less.

**cjcox** · 22-May-2009, 22:59

On Fri, 2009-05-22 at 22:26 +0000, LewsTherinTelemon wrote:
> Would you mind telling me what you have in your .bashrc and and
> /etc/profile exactly and the following displays?
>
> paracelsus@Callandor:~> env | grep -i term
> LESS_TERMCAP_mb=
> LESS_TERMCAP_md=
> LESS_TERMCAP_me=
> TERM=xterm
> LESS_TERMCAP_ue=
> LESS_TERMCAP_us=
> LESS_TERMCAP_so=
> LESS_TERMCAP_se=
> COLORTERM=1
>
> Strange as it should work but does not seem to for me. Must have
> something off in /etc/profile I am thinking.

Did you just cut and paste the lines from my message directly into your
shell? No need to try to put into your profile when just testing.

**cjcox** · 22-May-2009, 23:00

On Sat, 2009-05-23 at 01:26 +0000, ken yap wrote:
> Looking at the man page for less, I don't see any documentation that
> suggests that these kinds of environment variables are accepted by the
> standard less on openSUSE. Maybe they work in a modified or cutting edge
> version of less.

It's there, been there for many, many years. It's just not documented.

**LewsTherinTelemon** · 22-May-2009, 23:12

Hey cjcox,

I did not just paste the lines into bash - I have them in my .bashrc, and if I examine them, I see they are being defined and exported correctly, for example:

paracelsus@Callandor:~> env | grep -i term
LESS_TERMCAP_mb=
LESS_TERMCAP_md= (displays in red)
LESS_TERMCAP_me= (displays in blue)
TERM=xterm
LESS_TERMCAP_ue=
LESS_TERMCAP_us=
LESS_TERMCAP_so= (displays in grey)
LESS_TERMCAP_se=
COLORTERM=1

That is what is so odd about this. There they are, displayed in color, everything looks great. echo $PAGER shows less is set, and termcap is installed - but man pager are still not in color. (I did comment out unset termcap in /etc/profile - made no difference.)

Would you mind sharing your complete /etc/profile, .bashrc and what versions of termap and less you are using?

Thanks!
Pete