3.1 Using avatarsay as fancy text-terminal

The program avatarsay can be used as a fancy text-terminal and as a frontend for textconsole programs on posix-compatible systems (not for Windows).

From the main menu you can choose “terminal-mode”, or you can start avatarsay with the option --terminal, or -t for short. This gives you a terminal session with the default shell for your system-account. If you don't like colors being used in the balloon, you can use the option --nocolor, or -b for short.

If you want to use a different shell or starting directory, you can set the environment variables SHELL and HOME to different values. By the way, the program can get the correct values also when these variables are not set.

3.1.1 frontend for text-console programs

You can use avatarsay as a frontend for text-console programs. Use the option --execute, or -x for short, followed by the name of the program to execute. You can of course also combine this with the option --nocolor. Options after the programs name are passed to the executed program. That means, the order of the options is important.

For example to log in into another machine, using ssh:

     avatarsay --execute ssh example.net

To write an e-mail with the program mutt:

     avatarsay -bx mutt pal@example.net

Write the mail with a mail program on the remote machine:

     avatarsay -bx ssh -t example.net mutt pal

Note: when you use ssh this way, you have to use the option -t for ssh.

Surf the web with lynx:

     avatarsay -bx lynx

As you can see, you can use it to actually do very weird things with it.

3.1.2 the terminal-type

The program avatarsay simulates the text-console of the kernel Linux. So the environment variable TERM is set to either linux or linux-m.

Because this choice might lead to some confusion, I try to explain, what this does not mean:

• It does not mean, that the code is limited to systems, that use Linux as kernel. It was successfully tested on FreeBSD and should run fairly well on other posix-compatible systems also.
• It does not mean, that the variable TERM should be changed on other systems. Leave it as it is. But the system should have entries for linux and linux-m in its terminal database(s).
• It does not mean, that I have used code from Linux. I just read the manpage console_codes and the Terminfo and Termcap entries and some other documents to get information.
• It does not mean, that the terminal is not compliant to standards. In fact, the console emulation of the kernel Linux is very compatible to ANSI X3.64 (ECMA-48). But there are things missing and some things, like key-codes are extra. So the value linux is actually the right one.

3.1.3 extensions

The terminal-emulation of avatarsay supports extensions, which are not in ANSI X3.64 (ECMA-48) and which are not supported by the Linux terminal emulation.

To use these extensions in your own program, it is recommended first to check for the existence of the environment variable AKFAVTTERM.

CSI ? 56 h

switches the slowprint-mode on

CSI ? 56 l

switches the slowprint-mode off (default)

further extensions are planned.