Please describe the problem:
The problem is that gnome-terminal does not seem to completely emulate xterm compatibility.  It seems to emulate positioning and things, but that's about it.  For instance, this test function in bash will dynamically change the font size in xterm, but fails in gnome-terminal.

function font() {
	font_size=11
	font_weight="medium"
	if [ "$1" == "big"    ] || [ "$2" == "big"    ]; then font_size=26; fi
	if [ "$1" == "bigbig" ] || [ "$2" == "bigbig" ]; then font_size=34; fi
	if [ "$1" == "bold"   ] || [ "$2" == "bold"   ]; then font_weight="bold"; fi
	_font="\e]50;-*-lucidatypewriter-$font_weight-r-*-*-$font_size-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*\007"
	echo -ne "$_font"
}

# execute with '$ font big'

I also have the ability to change my background color with escape sequences in xterm, but not so in gnome-terminal.  For instance, this bash code works in xterm:

w='rgb:ff/ff/ff'  # white
g='rgb:aa/aa/aa'  # light/linux gray
b='rgb:00/00/00'  # black

w_background="\e]10;$b;$w;$b;$b;$b;$b;$w;$w\007"
g_background="\e]10;$b;$g;$b;$b;$b;$b;$w;$w\007"
b_background="\e]10;$g;$b;$b;$b;$b;$b;$w;$w\007"

# execute with '$ echo -ne $w_background'
# execute with '$ echo -ne $g_background'
# execute with '$ echo -ne $b_background'


Steps to reproduce:
1. Input provided functions and definitions
2. Execute with suggested "execute with" snippets
3. Compare results with doing the same thing in xterm


Actual results:
Font does not dynamically change, nor does background change color.


Expected results:
Font should dynamically change, and background color should change.


Does this happen every time?
Yes.


Other information:
A reference for the different options and escape sequences: http://rtfm.etla.org/xterm/ctlseq.html

And, if these are helpful:

$ uname -a
Linux hani 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Fri Jul 11 21:01:46 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 8.04.1
Release:	8.04
Codename:	hardy