[sword-devel] Design of curses version of bible.

[The Schmidts]

Glenn Reed wrote:

> Hi,

<snip>

> Would it be advisable say to use ncurses functionality or should I stick
> to straight curses?  It would be nice to be able to use this through
> telnet I think or older computers without high end graphics compatibility.
>
> = Glenn.

Hello,

    My take on this: 1)NCURSES, being free software, is fairly easy to get
(and included with every Linux distro. I've ever seen, though, of course,
there are a lot more un*ces than just linux ;-) for anyone interested in
compiling the program (irregardless of what Un*x they use), so I wouldn't be
too worried about it myself; however 2)if you are worried about backward
compatibility with curses, you can wrap ncurses stuff (e.g. mouse, color, etc)
in #ifdef's.

    Compatibility issues stated.  Next, I definitely think you _should_ use
mouse and color in the program.  Let's say someone is using an older 486 to
use the (n)curses app.  If they are running GNU/Linux or *BSD or whatever,
their computer is capable of color, so you may as well harness that for
highlighting, menus, screen divisions, etc.  And if they are running GPM, I
believe?, they can use their mouse with it, which can be very useful, even
with a text program.  (I'll go check to see if ncurses mouse support works
with gpm, or just X).  So, it's just an issue of programming it in such away
that if the terminal is capable of color/mouse it uses it, and if not, it
should still be usable.

Jeff Schmidt.