Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!gorodish!guy
From: guy@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Anyone have (or going to have) a X implementation of curses?
Message-ID: <52310@sun.uucp>
Date: 6 May 88 19:07:23 GMT
References: <3049@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> <2698@geac.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 22
Keywords: curses, convert

> Does anyone have any helpful suggestions for the reverse operation, i.e. an
> X to curses (or similar) conversion? Obviously, curses cannot cope with all
> of X's features, but it would be desirable to implement at least a subset
> for non-graphic terminals that can handle curses but not X.

Why?

How many X applications do you know of that make use of *only* those features
that could be provided by the mythical "X for a VT100"?  This includes not only
*output* capabilities, but *input* capabilities as well.  You wouldn't get a
mouse or an unencoded keyboard in such a system, for example, except perhaps on
very specialized terminals.

If people really want to write applications that can move between a "curses"
and alphanumeric terminal environment, and an X11-style environment, the
easiest solutions would seem to be:

	1) Solve this at a higher level - develop a forms package with two
	   implementations, one atop "curses" and one atop X11/Xt or whatever,
	   and implement the application atop this forms package.

	2) Run your "curses" application inside an "xterm" window.