Re: ncurses applications: best practices

[Sentinel]

> The way to do this, IMO, is to quit using WINDOWs for layout and to
> use PANELs instead. Create only stdscr, then use panels to manage your
> main layout. You can create screen-sized panels and bring each one to
> the top as you go to the next page. You could also have a tab bar (or
> similar) across the top and catch click events to trigger a certain
> panel coming to the top. If you have overlapping windows, DON'T use
> the WINDOW class directly - use a PANEL instead. PANELs have
> advantages over WINDOWs, mainly in that they handle overlapping
> content predictably. Within a given PANEL you would use subwindows to
> manage the layout (you cannot have embedded panels, though you can
> simulate a similar effect if you use screen-sized panels for pages and
> show only the applicable "child" panels when that page comes to the
> front).
>
>
> --
> ----- stephan beal
> http://wanderinghorse.net/home/stephan/
Stephan,
Your advice has been great. Sadly, all the examples one gets use stdscr 
for 
writing. I was able to easily link my application files with my main menu 
thanks to your advice.

Now each file has a class with a run(). I can instantiate it from my menu. 
There is also a main() which initializes stdscr so i can call the file 
directly.

However, what is written to stdscr does not get cleaned off. Do confirm 
this: I should *NEVER* write to stdscr. Currently, my main menu is 
passing stdscr to the constructor of the called programs. I think this 
should NOT happen.

You advised a bottom panel for messages etc. Sounds great - I have to make 
that change.

* Defining colors on the fly *

It seems to me that the init_pair way of defining a color_pair with a 
running number disallows me from allowing my user to just say something 
like: 
"label => "Hello", foreground => Color.blue"
in a definition file. Has anyone faced this issue? Any thoughts on this. I 
think most programs like mutt/alpine etc allow users to define colors in 
a user-friendly manner.

regards
rkumar