Re: ncurses applications: best practices

[Sentinel]

On Tue, 23 Sep 2008, Craig Forbes wrote:

> --On Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:19:29 AM +0530 Sentinel 
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> > But now I am wondering whether all labels, message fields etc should be
> > form fields for better manageability.
>
> I use Fields (with the O_EDIT and O_ACTIVE options off) for labels in my 
> forms but for a help messages I split the screen into 2 panels one for the 
> form covering all but the bottom 2 lines and a second panel for messages 
> covering the bottom 2 lines of the screen.

I am thinking of going back to that. Only issue is that while looping 
through fields I have to keep ignoring some. Since mine is a generic app, 
(I am generating code based on a user defined DSL,there are plenty of such 
iterations.)

 > > I can then clear the lower panel independent of the form.

Thats interesting, will look into that. I was wondering how exactly to use 
panels. I just tried creating 2 forms on my screen, but the second form is 
just not displaying, although it does block off another field. So its 
there!
 >
> > 2. >> 3. Saving. Unless I tab out of a field, the value is not stored. On
> > pressing the save key, i tried getting the formdriver to move to next
> > field but that did not result in the field value being set.
>
> I call form_driver(FORM,REQ_VALIDATION) which saves the buffers for the 
> current field and then validates the value before calling my save function.
Actually, i did this too. I called REQ_VAL and moved to the first field, 
but still the changed data in current field is not stored in field_buffer.

> > 4. the "field" object does not take a label or id of any kind. Do you
> > maintain another array of fieldnames to map a fieldname to a field object?
>
> I have used the C++ bindings and subclassed formfields to give them 
> additional attributes but you could also use the field_userptr to store 
> arbitrary data in the field.
> I just loop through the fields searching for the one with the right 
> attributes.
>
> -Craig
I just discovered a user_object (I am using the ruby wrapper, btw). That 
really makes my work MUCH more manageable. I now can move those hashes and 
arrays into each field.

ONE NEW POINT - MULTI-PAGE APPS:

Have any of you created multi-page apps. Like a menu page which calls 
various screens etc. (Think pine/alpine). Can someone give me a quick 
pointer on doing this. Do i do this within the same curses session, or do 
an endwin for page 1, and then start again for page 2.

Thanks a lot for your inputs.