I have AT 12.18 set up to show me black text on a white background (Appearance: Application Defaults, Foreground=Black, Background=White). When I'm telneting to a system and they blast me lots of traffic, occasionally refreshing the screen, the display will sometimes switch to a black background with white text and remain that way.
I tried fiddling with Appearance setting but couldn't find a way via that pane to switch back to my preferred color scheme (Black text on white background) but *eventually* found a way == disconnect then reconnect to the telent session, to get back to my desired settings.
But how is the remote session overriding my preferred Appearance, and how I can it stop it from doing that so I don't have to do the disconnect/reconnect dance?
The remote host can change the terminal colors through escape sequences. This is common for example when listing out files in the shell, where different file types (folders) may display with a different color. It's also common when a text editor uses color for syntax highlighting while editing code, etc.... Well-behaved servers should switch colors when they need to, but return to your defaults when they're done. Ill-behaved ones may not play that nice. Once the server changes the colors, Absolute will NOT just 'switch back' without being told to.
There are a few conditions where colors commonly get wacky.... For example, catting binary data to the screen. When you say the other system 'blasts you lots of traffic', I wonder if this isn't it.
Generally, typing 'reset' at the shell will return things to normal without having to disconnect/reconnect.
If you believe something is going WRONG, you could send me a session logfile and I can take a look. In Absolute:
1. File->Open Log
2. Connect to the server which blasts 'lots of data' until you see the problem arise
3. File->Close log
4. zip and email the log to me.
Not, it's not a binary dump. The system at the other end is just dumping a ton of console data on boot or after running specific system commands. But part way thru the screen switches to black + white text and stays there, unless & until I manually disconnect then reconnect. Very annoying.
Let's assume that that the server isn't "well behaved." == is sending such escape seqs intentionally or because there are bursts of gibberish. I don't think it's unreasonable to set AT to ignore any color changes and leave things along even if the server would "like" to force (request...) a color change. A "dumber" telnet program like PuTTY does that. Isn't there a way to make AT "dumber"?
