Which way is better in C ?

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Thu, 2005-01-20 at 20:10, Bill Campbell wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2005, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> >On Thu, 2005-01-20 at 15:26, Ben Duncan wrote:
> >> While true, ncurses has a lot going, it also leaves a lot to be desired.
> >> S-Lang has pretty much the same as ncurses, but has a lot of bases covered.
> >> 
> >> Example, ncurses leaves one with figuring out function key and special
> >> key sequences return codes. S-lang simply returns a common "code" for whatever
> >> function/special key is pressed REGARDLESS of the terminal type.
> >
> >ncurses does this as well. It requires that they are defined in the
> >terminfo entry for that terminal, just like all the other definitions.
> >They are accessed via the KEY_F(num) C macro, where num is '1' ...
> >number of function keys.
> >
> >> There are several ready to use wrapper functions ready to run out of the box
> >> in S-Lang and S-Lang comes with it's own nifty , powerful language.
> >
> >ncurses also has a menu and window layer. It is called something like
> >slk. We did not use that. Only ncurses.
> >
> >> SLrn, jed, most, lynx, dosemu, SLirc, Red Hat installer using newt,
> >> are all written using S-Lang and/or the S-Lang libraries.
> >
> >When we did character-based stuff, we used curses. The, we moved to XVT,
> >which is a cross platform commercial product accessed from C or C++.
> >When we went to GUIs, we opted for tcl/tk, which we are happy with as we
> >use it as a C extension to our applications. I am not familiar with
> >S-Lang. 
> 
> ``Character-based stuff'' is still far superior to GUIs for heads-down data
> entry work where one doesn't want to have to manipulate mice, or anything
> else that requires moving fingers from the home keys or numeric keypad.
> Even curses based widget sets can be less efficient than programs that
> handle the keyboard directly through curses.

I fully agree. A GUI need not be all mice and menus. It depends on how
you make the application. In our case, the system is a data collection
control and monitoring system. It's main job is to control subsystems
and collect data and and display the status of all. The user presses the
occasional function key. The app has GUI written all over it.

BTW, camco!bill ?? Still in use?

> 
> Bill
> --
> INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
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> 
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