Re: GUI terminal widget

[Kai Torben Ohlhus]

On 6/4/19 11:35 AM, CROZIER Richard wrote:
> 
> On 03/06/2019 17:34, Rik wrote:
>>
>> I didn't see any comments at https://wiki.octave.org/GUI_terminal_widget
>> so I thought I would bring the conversation back to the mailing list.
>>
>>  From a strategic level, this is a big change.  What do we get from
>> doing this (pros) and what do we lose (cons)?  Are there sufficient
>> benefits to undertake this task?
>>
>> Although the terminal often causes problems, it also allows for a lot of
>> code re-use.  We use Readline for history and input processing.  We get
>> 'less' and other utilities for free.  In replacing this, do we
>> essentially need to re-invent the wheel? That's a *lot* of coding effort
>> for something that isn't even particularly Octave related.  Since your
>> time is finite, if you are working on this then there will be other
>> Octave bugs that aren't addressed.  Is the balance worthwhile?  You
>> understand core Octave better than anyone so it may be that your time is
>> better spent resolving 50 bugs there, rather than writing more generic
>> terminal emulation code that other programmers could do.
>>
>> Just some ideas on what to answer before going forward.
>>
>> --Rik
>>
> 
> 
> The terminal code in Octave is a mess, I have gone in to try and fix
> bugs, but it is so complex (for example there is, or at least was,
> completely different terminal code for Windows and Linux), that fixing
> simple bugs had a huge overhead in understanding the terminal code.
> 
> Given that no-one has done anything to improve this for a long time
> perhaps JWE's help is needed to get the terminal to a state where others
> can help pick things up, especially if he has done some of the work already.
> 
> I also get the impression he's enjoying getting this working. Enjoyment
> is important for a project maintainer!
> 
> Incidentally, do you really need a pager in the gui? You have scrollbars
> on the windows. All you really need is a keyboard shortcut to scroll up
> don't you? Like SHIFT+PageUp
> 
> I also wonder if there is a lot which can be lifted/translated from the
> Jupyter Qt console:
> 
> https://github.com/jupyter/qtconsole
> 
> It has a history and a pager.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Richard
> 

Looks cool and is something I regularly dream of in Octave, but
qtconsole is written in Python.  Unless Octave moves in this direction,
I think this is difficult to realize.  Another promising C++ candidate
is qtermwidet. Both listed here:

   https://wiki.octave.org/GUI_terminal_widget#Alternatives

Additionally, I raised a question about Unicode support of this new
solution, which occasionally results in bug reports.


https://wiki.octave.org/GUI_terminal_widget#International_Characters_Support

Best regards,

Kai