Re: [cc65] conio tabs

On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 05:58:39PM +0200, MagerValp wrote:
> I'm voting for it. The point of the library is to make it convenient
> to do text output, and having it overwrite memory and crash the
> program because you do one cprintf statement too much (something
> that's bitten me more than once) isn't very elegant.

Automatic scrolling is a feature requested quite often, so while I don't share
your opinion, I know that other people do. So if there are more
votes/arguments for changing conio, please let me know. I do have my own
position in respect of the conio API (I designed it, so I have to:-), but I'm
open for changes if they're requested by a broad majority.

> Having to
> manually check where the cursor is after every print statement, to see
> if we need to call cscroll, sounds kinda clunky.

As I see it, there are two different types of applications (when it comes to
console output): One just outputs some text and doesn't expect it to appear in
a specific screen location. Command line tools are an example. For this type
of application, printf is all you need, and using conio means using the wrong
tool. The other application type has a fixed screen layout, uses menus, a
statusline, input fields, or whatever. For this application, text must appear
in specific screen locations, so it's necessary to have absolute cursor
positioning. Scrolling will destroy the screen layout, so it's futile. This
latter application type is the one, conio was made for.

Maybe I'm wrong and there's really a third type of application, but I have
difficulties imagining one where both, absolute cursor positioning and
automatic scrolling of the whole screen is desired.

Regards


        Uz


-- 
Ullrich von Bassewitz                                  uz@musoftware.de
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