Re: GUI terminal widget

[Torsten Lilge]

On Tue, 2019-06-04 at 14:10 +0200, Kai Torben Ohlhus wrote:
> 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

As mentioned in the wiki , qtermwidget is not available for windows. I
think that's why it is not an option since, we still would have to
maintain two different terminals, which is really hard when trying to
implement new features or fixing bugs.

Torsten