I ran through the directions to get this installed, similar to the other DD plugins, and I have noticed that before the matrix window clears the screen, the
answer.msg file is being read in and displaying the old-style login prompt and procedure. It was my impression that the answer file would only be displayed if the user's terminal did not support ANSI.

Has anyone else encountered this, or watched the screen close enough to notice the flicker from their answer file's banner*.msg screens to the matrix screen? Had this been a dial-up connection, the user would have felt like they were
getting 2 sets of instructions to log in with.
For a low vision user like myself, I have to pay attention to everything, no matter how insignificant. My screen reader also does not discriminate on what it reds, so each time I log in via telnet and get the matrix login, it reads
the answer.msg file and displays one of the 4 banner*.msg files.
I realize this is a 0.01% of people impacted, but I thought I'd ask before I go diving into someone else's code and see if I can pinpoint the ANSI detection process, move that in front of any answer or theme display so it's an either-or
instead of both.
Greatly appreciate those of you smart enough to be writing the code for these programs and plugins.

-Winzlo

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Winzlo to All on Wed Apr 29 2026 03:07 pm

I ran through the directions to get this installed, similar to the other DD plugins, and I have noticed that before the matrix window clears the screen, the
answer.msg file is being read in and displaying the old-style login prompt and procedure. It was my impression that the answer file would only be displayed if the user's terminal did not support ANSI.

My answer.msg is empty - I don't remember specifically why, but I highly suspect I made it empty so that nothing would be displayed before my login matrix.

Nightfox

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Nightfox to Winzlo on Wed Apr 29 2026 01:31 pm

Ok, that makes sense, and why doing the same worked here. I'm going to take this a step further and see if I can use conditional codes to only display answer.msg if ANSI is not detected. That popped into my head tonight as a reverse-logic approach.

Thanks,

-Winzlo

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Winzlo to Nightfox on Thu Apr 30 2026 12:06 am

Wi> Ok, that makes sense, and why doing the same worked here. I'm going to

What makes sense? It would help if you quote what you're replying to in order to help people follow the conversation.

Nightfox

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Nightfox to Winzlo on Thu Apr 30 2026 09:03 am

What makes sense? It would help if you quote what you're replying to in

order to help people follow the conversation.
Claficfication that it makes sense to empty answer.msg to resolve the dual login screen issue. However, in my mind this feels like a sacrifice and not a solution, so I'm continuing to evaluate ways to show answer.msg, but only when the matrix would not ordinarily display (i.e !ANSI)

PS. I'd also like to find a way to avoid the dual map of ^Q between ICEEdit and SyncTERM. SyncTERM always seems to win, so ^Q prompts me to quit instead of quote. That's why I didn't quote the last one, and had to manually select/copy/paste to quote for this message.

-Winzlo

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Winzlo to Nightfox on Thu Apr 30 2026 12:24 pm

PS. I'd also like to find a way to avoid the dual map of ^Q between ICEEdit and SyncTERM. SyncTERM always seems to win, so ^Q prompts me to quit instead of quote. That's why I didn't quote the last one, and had to manually select/copy/paste to quote for this message.

It sounds like you're running SyncTERM in some weird video mode (ANSI or curses?) where Ctrl-Q would prompt to exit SyncTERM. That's not the norm - control key combinations are normally sent to the server/BBS.
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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Winzlo to Nightfox on Thu Apr 30 2026 12:24 pm

Claficfication that it makes
sense to empty answer.msg to resolve the dual login screen issue. However, in my mind this feels like a sacrifice and not a solution

How does it feel like a sacrifice? I'm not sure what other way there is to get rid of that text.

PS. I'd also like to find a way to avoid the dual map of ^Q between ICEEdit and SyncTERM. SyncTERM always seems to win, so ^Q prompts me to quit instead of quote. That's why I didn't quote the last one, and had to manually select/copy/paste to quote for this message.

For SlyEdit, go into the user settings (Ctrl-U) and disable the "Ctrl-Q to quote" option, and then it will use Ctrl-Y instead to quote. Or you can type /q on an empty line and press Enter to quote.

Nightfox

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Digital Man to Winzlo on Thu Apr 30 2026 11:06 am

It sounds like you're running SyncTERM in some weird video mode (ANSI or curses?) where Ctrl-Q would prompt to exit SyncTERM. That's not the norm - control key combinations are normally sent to the server/BBS. --

You got it. I work mainly fom an iPad Pro and use ShellFish to SSH into my primary Linux VM. From there, I use SyncTerm to connect to the BBS's. Video mode is 80x25, which fits the size of my terminal perfectly.

-Winzlo

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Nightfox to Winzlo on Thu Apr 30 2026 12:44 pm

How does it feel like a sacrifice? I'm not sure what other way there is to get rid of that text.

While I am unaware of a case where the matrix would not be rendered properly, the edge case presumably exists where a user is on a terminal like VT100 or even using some antiquated hardware to really re-live the experience. I wondered what would happen in those cases, since the documentation for DDLoginMatrix states that if it could not use the matrix, it would fall back to the answer.msg file, which if memory serves, is why it has to be included as a commandl ine argument. If there are no edge cases left, then truly clearing answer.msg is the right option. I'm jus new enough to the scene to not know for certain. It seems that wrapping answer.msg in @!ANSI@ prevents its display as well, but I don't have an actual edge case to verify it with. One way or the other gets the same result. Certainly mean no offense. I prefer implementing solutions over solving symptoms, as I presume you do as well. I simply have all day and all night to focus on one tiny aspect of the BBS that almost nobody else has. Overall goal is the same, to enhance the UX. Don't worry about it, I got something that I think works, you have something you know works. :) Once I've learned [the hard way, presumably], I'll switch over to the way that really works. I posed the question to see if anyone had definitive reasons for not doing it the way I have.

For SlyEdit, go into the user settings (Ctrl-U) and disable the "Ctrl-Q to quote" option, and then it will use Ctrl-Y instead to quote. Or you can type /q on an empty line and press Enter to quote.

Arhg, I keep forgetting about that one. In the 80's /Q was to quit on many BBS's and I guess I never unlearned that lesson. Your setting suggestion works perfectly in my environment.

-Winzlo

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Re: Synchronet with Digital Distortion Logon Matrix plugin
By: Winzlo to Nightfox on Thu Apr 30 2026 09:05 pm

While I am unaware of a case where the matrix would not be rendered properly, t he edge case presumably exists where a user is on a terminal like VT100 or eve n using some antiquated hardware to really re-live the experience. I wondered w hat would happen in those cases, since the documentation for DDLoginMatrix s tat es that if it could not use the matrix, it would fall back to the answer.ms g fi le, which if memory serves, is why it has to be included as a command-line argu ment. If there are no edge cases left, then truly clearing answer.msg is the r ight option. I'm jus new enough to the scene to not know for certain. It seems that wrapping answer.msg in @!ANSI@ prevents its display as well, but I don't have an actual edge case to verify it with. One way or the other gets the same result. Certainly mean no offense. I prefer implementing solutions over solv ing symptoms, as I presume you do as well. I simply have all day and all night to focus on one tiny aspect of the BBS that almost nobody else has. Overall g oal is the same, to enhance the UX. Don't worry about it, I got som ething that I think works, you have something you know works. :) Once I've l earned [the hard way, presumably], I'll switch over to the way that really wor ks. I posed the I have.

This has been debunked - answer.msg is still being displayed even with the @!ANSI@ wrapper. I intentionally broke a line in exec/load/dd_lightbar_menu.js while I was working on the non-idle timeout issue I was having with the matrix, and discovered that answer.msg is still being dispayed. So, you were right - emptying the answer.msg file is the only and safest way to eliminate the double-login instruction issue I initially raised.

-Winzlo

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