Hi, This information is meant for those who don't follow what is being merged to mynewt core code. It outlines new features recently added to system console that could be useful for users.
Mynewt system console (uart or RTT) has recently been changed a little. Changes should not affect unaware users, all new features are turned off by default. The most important addition is shell prompt visible all the time at the bottom of the terminal window. This change was driven by btshell users who run scan command which in turn prints a lot. With massive amount of output logs visible on the screen it was difficult to enter new commands since whatever was typed was immediately lost in logs. Now with just one syscfg value, prompt line is visible at the bottom of the window and commands can by typed even if prints are flooding. When this newt sticky prompt was introduced, a couple of small changes were also added: - HOME, END keys sent by some terminals are handled in the usual way. - CTRL^C clears current input line (much like in bash). - ignoring non-NLIP input was really ignoring everything that was non-NLIP (now line endings are not ignored since that was used by some users). With sticky prompt activated user can experience some unexpected behaviour after terminal window is resized. Terminals change some settings when resized, and those changes are not passed to an application that controls terminal (it this case mynewt system console). When user sees some strange behaviour, rescue key is CTRL-L (much line in gdb or vim). Some more changes are coming ( https://github.com/apache/mynewt-core/pull/2093). This change was also inspired by btshell users who use complicated commands and often store them in some files for later use. This PR adds possibility to store commands in device persistent storage so they could be reused after reboot. Command history can be stored in dedicated flash area or it can use one of the existing persistent logs (if there is no room on flash that could be used for this history alone). To improve shell user experience even more, automatic history search can be activated that pops up history commands while user start to type them (feature known from web browsers' address bar). All new features can be activated with syscfg values (there are two packages for history handling, but they will be included when history features are turned on). New features syscfg values can be found in: - sys/console/full/syscfg.yml - sys/console/full/history_ram/syscfg.yml - sys/console/full/history_log/syscfg.yml The most important ones are here: * CONSOLE_PROMPT_STICKY enables prompt visible at the bottom of terminal CONSOLE_PROMPT_STICKY: 1 There are some more syscfg values that could customize prompt behaviour and look. When console is used with putty terminal, recommended values are: CONSOLE_PROMPT_STICKY: 1 CONSOLE_PROMPT_SOFT_CURSOR: 1 CONSOLE_PROMPT_SOFT_CURSOR_ATTR: '"30;42m"' CONSOLE_PROMPT_HIDE_CURSOR_IN_LOG_AREA: 1 * CONSOLE_HISTORY selects how history is handled none - equivalent to CONSOLE_HISTORY_SIZE = 0 ram - equivalent to CONSOLE_HISTORY_SIZE > 0 log - history is stored in log No history (default): CONSOLE_HISTORY: none For history stored in ram there is settings specifying how many lines are to be kept CONSOLE_HISTORY_RAM_HISTORY_SIZE this value means what CONSOLE_HISTORY_SIZE used to mean before log-backed history was added CONSOLE_HISTORY: ram CONSOLE_HISTORY_RAM_HISTORY_SIZE: 16 For history stored in flash there are two options: - history kept in existing log, to use this the following lines are needed (reboot_log is used as an example only). CONSOLE_HISTORY: log CONSOLE_HISTORY_LOG_NAME: '"reboot_log"' - history kept in dedicated flash area syscfg value CONSOLE_HISTORY: log following changes need to be in bsp.yml FLASH_AREA_CONSOLE_HISTORY: # This name is important user_id: 10 device: 0 offset: 0x000E0000 # example only should be valid value for given BSP size: 8kB * CONSOLE_HISTORY_AUTO_SEARCH activates history search when user types command. To activate: CONSOLE_HISTORY_AUTO_SEARCH: 1 Finally syscfg value CONSOLE_HISTORY_SIZE was marked as defunct and should be removed from targets. Keeping it would make configuration values names inconsistent. Description shown during build clearly states what needs to be done if it is used in existing target. best regards Jerzy
