Terminal (ANSI/vt320) Plugin
The terminal plugin is a visual software component that acts as the front
end. It displays the data that is transmitted by the remote host and translates
keystrokes to be sent to the remote host. It implements an ANSI
and vt320/vt220/vt100 compliant terminal.
Most of the features of the terminal emulation can be configured using
the properties explained below. Additionally it provides a plugin menu
that can be operated if a menu bar is available.
You can configure the plugin using the following properties:
| Property |
Documentation |
|
General Properties
|
| Terminal.foreground |
Set the foreground color of the terminal. You can use 24 but hexadecimal
values:
#ffffff is white and #000000 is black.
This is just like the encoding you use in HTML. |
| Terminal.background |
Set the background color of the terminal. You can use 24 but hexadecimal
values:
#ffffff is white and #000000 is black.
This is just like the encoding you use in HTML. |
| Terminal.colorSet |
Use this property to define a complete color set for the terminal.
A color set contains eight colors as defined by the ANSI standard.
(not
yet implemented) |
| Terminal.border |
Declare the size of the border that will sourround the terminal. |
| Terminal.borderRaised |
This property has no effect if Terminal.border is not set
or zero. It may be set to "true" or "false". |
| Terminal.scrollBar |
Adds a scroll bar to the terminal using the direction set in the property.
Possible directions are "East" and "West". |
|
Terminal
Emulation Properties
|
| Terminal.id |
Used to identify the type of the terminal. This is the string that
is sent to the remote host. Default is "vt320" but you may use any
string, like "vt100", "vt220" or "xterm" if
it suits you. |
| Terminal.buffer |
This sets the size of the scroll back buffer the terminal uses. The
buffer is allocated dynamically until it reaches this size. You cannot
set the scrollback buffer to a value smaller than the amount of lines on
the screen. |
| Terminal.size |
Set the size of the terminal in terms of rows and lines. The value
has to be given in the following format:
[width,height]
Whitespaces are allowed within the brackets and just before and after the
comma. The standard is "[80,24]" |
| Terminal.resize |
This property defines the method that is applied when the terminal
window is resized. It may be either "font" - to resize
the font to match the window size or "screen" - to change
the amount of lines and columns displayed or "none" - to
do nothing. |
| Terminal.font |
Tells the terminal which font to use for the display of characters.
This is usually "Monospaced" as any other font name might
not be available on the client host. |
| Terminal.fontStyle |
The font style to be used when looking up the font. The font style
may be "plain", "bold" or "italic".
The default is "plain". |
| Terminal.fontSize |
The size of the font to be used. If you use automatic font resize this
will be used as the initial font size. |
| Terminal.keyCodes |
This should be set to the URL of a property file that contains the
key codes you would like to use. The file is first tried using the
resource loading mechanism, which looks in the CLASSPATH and then as a
URL. Have a look at the file format for the key codes
definition. |
| Terminal.VMS |
Set this property to "true" if you are connecting to
a VMS system. |
| Terminal.IBM |
Set this to "true" if you would like to use PC ANSI
graphics characters as used by some BBS's. |
Definition of Key Codes
The definition of key codes should only be done if
your application uses a very different keyboard layout than the standard
vt320. The definition of almost all special keys is possible and follows
rules described below:
# here is the rule
[SCA]KEY=STRING
The characters enclosed in [ and ]
are optional and only one of the characters 'S' (Shift),
'C' (Control) or 'A' (Alt) may appear before
the KEY, which is a textual representation (F1, PGUP etc) of the
key you would like to redefine.
The new STRING you define to be sent when
pressing the key should come after the equal sign (=).
Hash marks (#) in the file declare a line as comment and will
be ignored. Some examples explain the syntax:
Send the string "test" when pressing the F1
key:
F1 = test
On pressing Control + PGUP send the string
"pgup pressed":
CPGUP = pgup pressed
Redefine the key Alt + F12 to send an escape
character:
AF12 = \e
As you can see the string you can define may contain
special characters which may be escaped using the backslash (\). Allowed
special characters follow in the table below:
| Special Character |
Explanation |
| \b |
Backspace, this character is usually sent by the <-
key (not the cursor left key!). |
| \e |
Escape, this character is usually sent by the Esc key. |
| \n |
Newline, this character will move the cursor to a new line.
On UNIX systems it is equivalent to carriage return + newline. Usually
the Enter key send this character. |
| \r |
Carriage Return, this key moves the cursor to the beginning
of the line. In conjunction with Newline it moves the cursor to
the beginning of a new line. |
| \t |
Tabulator, the tab character is sent by the ->| key
and moves the cursor to the next tab stop defined by the terminal. |
| \v |
Vertical Tabulator, sends a vertical tabulator character. |
| \a |
Bell, sends a terminal bell character which should make the
terminal sound its bell, but the implementation is a silent one ;-) |
| \number |
Inserts the character that is defined by this number in the
ISO Latin1 character set. The number should be a decimal value. |
The following table explains which key may be
redefined. As explained above each of the keys may be prefixed by a character
defining the redefinition that occures if it is pressed in conjunction
with the shift, control or alt keys.
| Key Representation |
Remarks |
|
F1 - F20
|
The function key, F1, F2 ... up to F20. |
|
PGUP
|
The Page Up key. |
|
PGDOWN
|
The Page Down key. |
|
END
|
The End key. |
|
HOME
|
The Home (Pos 1) key. |
|
INSERT
|
The Insert key. |
|
REMOVE
|
The Remove key. |
|
UP
|
The Cursor Up key. |
|
DOWN
|
The Cursor Down key. |
|
LEFT
|
The Cursor Left key. |
|
RIGHT
|
The Cursor right key. |
|
Additional
Programmer Documentation is available:
| de.mud.jta.plugin.Terminal |
| This is the programmer documentation for the plugin. Use it as an example
if you want to write your own back end plugins. |
| de.mud.jta.event |
| This plugins uses some of the events and listeners described here. |
| de.mud.terminal |
| Have a look here for the underlying terminal emulation package. |
If you produced keyCode definition
files you'd like to share with others send
them to us and we will publish them here. |