.plan

[Dikran Kassabian]

In article <61 at towernet.UUCP> larrym at rigel.uucp (24121-E R Inghrim(3786)556) writes:
>I am in the process of putting together a 
>".plan" file, and I've noticed that when
>I finger some users, they've got 
>these plans with simple animated figures jumping 
>and beeping.  How can I make up a .plan file like those?

Wow, what a bad idea.  I may be jumping to conclusions here but it sounds
to me like these users have terminal-dependant cursor addressing and the
like in their .plan file.  This is dandy if you happen to have the right
terminal, but lousy if you don't.  There's the potential of messing up
your terminal settings by having your terminal misinterpret the intended
meaning of that stuff.

While there certainly are some tools that know how to reference terminfo
or termcap in order to perform this stuff on any terminal with a correct
entry, there are no versions of the finger/fingerd that do this that I
know of.

If you REALLY know for sure that EVERY person that will finger you will
be using (for example) a vt100, you could construct some neat but simple
animation by making a file that contains the appropriate cursor addressing
and characters, including space characters (' ') where needed to erase.

      ^Deke Kassabian,   deke at ee.rochester.edu   or   ur-valhalla!deke
   Univ of Rochester, Dept of EE, Rochester, NY 14627     (+1 716-275-3106)