Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!CSE.OGI.EDU!schaefer
From: schaefer@CSE.OGI.EDU (Barton E. Schaefer)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.mush
Subject: Re: Odd mush screen behavior
Message-ID: <9001080625.AA11260@cse.ogi.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 90 06:25:25 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 35

On Jan 3,  6:11pm, Jaye Mathisen wrote:
} 
} I was using the :pick command to extract some messages, and after extracting
} them, delete 'em.  The following is the screen after mush was done
} picking-writing-deleting.
} 
} 
}    3  N  campbell@redsox.UUCP   Dec 19 11:46 (30  li) Re: What constitutes abu
}    4ing  cc.usu.edu!slcx9       Dec 19  3NET_P14tScripFACTS OF LIFE
}    5ing  uunet!ateng!chip    s) Dec 20  5:21 (36tScript_map_m.maps.hdr"
[ lots of messy redundancy deleted ]

This is is a side-effect of mush's "minimalist" approach to using curses.
Whenever output will scroll the screen, mush bypasses curses and prints
directly to the screen (because many if not most curses implementations
do not handle scrolling correctly, and some not at all).  It then prints
the ...continue... prompt to let you know that the screen has been messed
up.  Unfortunately, if for some reason printing that prompt causes the
line to wrap, curses will decide the screen needs to be redrawn.  Curses
doesn't know that mush has been scribbling on the screen behind its back,
so it efficiently redraws only some parts of the screen, leaving fragments
of mush's other output in the gaps.

This does mean that you should try to limit your $prompt setting to less
than 65 characters when using curses mode, or you'll see this sort of
garbage a lot.

Hitting any unbound key (space bar is easiest) will cause the screen to
be properly redrawn.

-- 
Bart Schaefer     "Miserable miscreant!  Question MY integrity, will you?"
               "I have to see some *evidence* of it before I can question it."
                                                            -- Calvin & Hobbes
schaefer@cse.ogi.edu (used to be cse.ogc.edu)