[PATCH 056/100] man/ncurses.3x: Revise "ENVIRONMENT" section, NCURSES_NO_MAGIC_COOKIE (12/21).

[G. Branden Robinson]

...attempting my explanation of this archaic mechanism.
---
 man/ncurses.3x | 23 +++++++++++++++++++----
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/man/ncurses.3x b/man/ncurses.3x
index ad1aa22ac..dd0eaf464 100644
--- a/man/ncurses.3x
+++ b/man/ncurses.3x
@@ -1262,10 +1262,25 @@ .SS "\fINCURSES_NO_HARD_TABS\fP"
 Set this environment variable to any value to disable the feature.
 You can also adjust your \fI\%stty\fP(1) settings to avoid the problem.
 .SS "\fINCURSES_NO_MAGIC_COOKIE\fP"
-Some terminals use a magic-cookie feature which requires special handling
-to make highlighting and other video attributes display properly.
-You can suppress the highlighting entirely for these terminals by
-setting this environment variable to any value.
+Many terminals store video attributes as a property of a character cell,
+as
+.I curses
+does.
+Historically,
+some recorded changes in video attributes as data that logically
+.I occupies
+character cells on the display,
+switching attributes on or off,
+similarly to tags in a markup language;
+these are termed \*(``magic cookies\*('',
+and must be subsequently overprinted.
+If the
+.I \%term\%info
+entry for your terminal type does not adequately describe its handling
+of magic cookies,
+set this variable to any value to instruct
+.I \%ncurses
+to disable attributes entirely.
 .SS "\fINCURSES_NO_PADDING\fP"
 Most of the terminal descriptions in the terminfo database are written
 for real \*(``hardware\*('' terminals.
-- 
2.30.2

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