Problem with "showmode" (was Re: how do you get modeline(s) ...)

[Martin Weitzel]

In article <1989Dec17.174535.22577 at NCoast.ORG> allbery at ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
[original question and part of answer deleted]
>
>Perhaps what you want is the "showmode" option.  This option makes the current
>mode show up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen; it's blank in
>command mode, or may show one of the following:
>
>				APPEND MODE
>				INSERT MODE
>				CHANGE MODE
>				REPLACE MODE
>				REPLACE 1 CHAR
>
[rest deleted]

On some systems (eg on my AT 386 with ISC's 386/ix) I have observed
a problem when using 'showmode': As far as I've tracked it down,
it seems to occur, if a ':map!'ped key-sequence leaves INSERT
mode, then scrolls the screen up and finally enters INSERT-mode
again. In that case, 'vi' forgets, to delete the mode-line and
scrolls it up on the screen together with the text. An unexperienced
user would think, that the mode-line has entered the edited text,
but CTRL-L shows, that this has not happened.

Now my question: Is this a problem with the "terminfo"-entry or
a bug of 'vi' (maybe it was not noticed, because all the gurus
including those who have the source for 'vi', tend *not* to use
'showmode' :-))
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