No, I meant the window's furniture so no colours. I agree, a tty-wrapper, like tmux, would provide another option.  I don't suppose there are terminals generally about where `tput hs' is true. Have you considered using the end of the prompt line for status, returning to the left for the "$ ", and being happy to do readline's redraw-current-line if you don't like the overwrite should you reach that far?