Package: less Version: 382-1 Severity: wishlist Feature request ===============
It would be great if someone could add color support for manpage viewing to less(1). Try it ====== To see how nice it is to have color, install most(1) and enter: MANPAGER=most man bash into your bash prompt. Or, if you do not want to install most, just add the following to your .bashrc file: LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\e[32m' LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$'\e[0m' LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\e[1;31m' LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\e[0m' Why? ==== Me and other people agree that color would look much nicer than the current ncurses-based bold and underlining: http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2004/10/msg00166.html http://www.bxlug.be/en/articles/118 http://debaday.livejournal.com/24084.html IIRC Red Hat Linux xterm already provides color manpages in less(1) by setting the XTerm*colorBDMode and XTerm*colorULMode resources. (See http://groups.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.slackware/msg/278a130a926d224d for more info about those resources.) But if color support were added to upstream less, it would affect all distros, not just Debian. This would be a good thing. Suggested implementation ======================== Lowercase letters are easier to type than capitals, and the only lowercase-letter option in less that isn't taken yet is -v. I humbly suggest that color be made the default, and that a -v / --view-grayscale option be added for people who insist on grayscale. If people request it, the -D / --color option, which, as the manpage describes, causes less to display bold/underline text in a custom color but works on MS-DOS only, could be made to work in Unix as well, but this would merely be a nice touch.
