Topic: Telnet Screens working in Win's telnet client

[Wei]

This is a trivial one, admitedly about "window dressing"
...but image can be everything, sometimes, right?  

When we use Win NT 4's telnet client to access an e-smith
box's admin screens from a workstation, "foreign characters"
make up the graphics of each screen's frame.

There ought to be -either-
  a way to change the assumption about
  what the telnet client(s) will be able to display

-or- an auto-detect mechanism that selects a terminal
     type after a brief "What Can You Do?" interchange,

so that showing prospective users (or paying cutomers even)
how to shutdown the e-smith box via an admin screen isn't
going to show a "less well designed" interface
than the ones they'll experience via a browser.

I presume a workaround for this is just a matter of
finding the template(s) for the "offending" screens
and changing them...

or - better - picking a value for TERM that
more closely matches the expectations of
Win NT's telnet client...

but wouldn't 'ya really expect that the installation
would assume the Windows telnet emulation capabilities
in the first place...?  

What am I missing?

[Darrell May]

I ran into the same problem, as I'm sure many new users do.  The best solution that was mentioned on the New User Forum came from Dan Brown.  A free program called Tera Term Pro.  Visit http://www2.e-smith.net/bboard/read.php3?num=2&id=760&thread=744 for details.  The home page for Tera Term Pro is http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html.  Works great for viewing the Admin Console in perfect color and for running the Taper backup add-on.

Regards,

Darrell

[Luke Drumm]

While I completely agree with Wei's assumption on the ability for MS Telnet to communicate 'fully' with E-smith, I think it might be worthwhile to point out that MS's default telnet app for Windows is 'very very bad'.

Even at the most basic levels of V100 style terminal support, I've found gaps, holes and sizeable horrors. Not that it's much of a comfort to NT users but Win 95+'s hyperterminal can be prodded into giving an uninspiring (but marginally better) telnet emulation if *really* stuck.

If you find yourself in a regular unavoidable bind with MS Telnet, I would suggest getting familar with your 'basic' telnet'ble apps such as the command line, vi and the /sbin/e-smith utils.

Luke.

[Pieter]

Try Dave's Telnet (dtelnet.exe) for a great windows telnetclient. (free)

[Scott Smith]

MS Telnet is an awful telnet app, but it is "free" (okay, free after you plunk down a few gold bars for the awful OS that comes with it!) Wei's question, however, seems to deal only with the presentation of line draw characters in the client.

I don't know if this applies to NT, but in the Win9x version you can cure the character set problem by changing the font. Out of the box the Win9x telnet client uses the FixedSys font. If you change this to the Terminal font (Terminal,Preferences,Font) the screens are bearable. Doesn't do much for the balance of the problems and shortcomings, but it is an improvement.

[Wei]

We've settled on an open source telnet client called "PuTTY"

THe only feature it seem to lack that we'd like to have, at present, is a mechism to translate into an audible tone, for a non-E-Smith application (e.g., so that remote users have some chance of attracting the attention of a workstation user during a non-voice help-desk interaction).

It was already on PuTTY's "To Do" (wish) list before we got to the site...