Re: How to hide/show cursor without Ncurses ?
On Thu, Mar 30, 2000 at 11:18:31AM +0100, lorenzo.zampese@notes.electrolux.it wrote:
> How can I hide/show the cursor on a generic text terminal (xterms
> included), without using the famous 'ncurses' libraries ?
use ncurses, then you don't have to make any hard-coded assumptions
about the terminal's capabilities. that's why it exists.
programming a unix text mode program which assumes that it's running
on a linux console or vt100 or xterm is evil...even more evil than dos
weenie programmers assuming that their text mode program is going to run
on a "standard" 80x25 IBM PC console, with or without ansi.sys
"dos weenie" programmers at least have the excuse that they are writing
for MS-DOS and that they are weenies. unix programmers shouldn't make
the same mistakes.
there's no such thing as a "standard" or "generic" text terminal, and
a unix programmer should always keep that in mind. even different
implementations of the same de-facto standards (like vt100) are not the
same, what works on one "vt100-clone" terminal is not guaranteed to work
on another "vt100-clone"...that's why the ncurses terminfo database has
hundreds of entries for various slightly different vt100 clones.
> And about colors and text scrolling ?
ditto.
> I found an interesting document on internet (unix programmer FAQ
> v1.31) concerning how to program terminals, tasks, mailing, etc., but
> it doesn't explain the above questions.
>
> It is very strange that there are so many documents about the linux's
> configuration, but a so very little number about the programming, or
> not ?
there's lots of programmers' documentation - most libraries are
documented (with quality ranging from poor to truly excellent). most
programming tools (e.g. make and gcc) have excellent documentation.
the problem isn't so much being able to find docs, as knowing where to
start.
craig (not a real programmer, but i pretend to be one from time to time)
--
craig sanders
Reply to: