Terminal app which takes up the whole terminal - c

I have been trying to figure out how to make an app similar to emacs in that when you run it, it runs in the terminal but it takes up the whole terminal and acts almost like a window. I can't find anything online about this, can anyone give me pointers of where to get started to figure this out?

For *nix, there is ncurses.
Wikipedia explains it to you: It is a library to write "GUI-like" applications in text format.
Also: Ncurses for Windows

Related

How to i make a .bat that targets a program and types in a text box

I have no idea where to start on this one. I have seen answers that are like this but I don't know how to format them for what I want. I just need to target the minecraft server while its open and close it by typing "stop" in the console. I have no code to show for but this will be in a other file so I can launch it and then have it close the program. btw I don't think I can use taskkill But anything will help ;) thankyou very much!
This is not possible using a batch file alone. There are two main ways to get input to another program in the system (in this case, java.exe):
Get your program to listen for a special signal. There are several administrative plugins for Minecraft which will run in the Java process and will do what you need.
Spoof user input to the program. In the case of a console app, you would probably use a SendKeys() based solution. See How to send input to the console as if the user is typing for some examples.
In the case of Minecraft, I think the first solution is going to be significantly easier, because the modding community has already supplied a number of solutions to this exact problem. #Frxstrem recommended mcrcon, which I suppose is as good a solution as any.
Most probably the console client you are using is scriptable and this is not good aproach.
Any way here's a sendKeys.bat. You can use it like:
call sendKeys.bat "Minecraft console title" "stop{enter}"
Batch files can't do this without calling out to something else; if you're going to call to something else, use AutoHotkey - that's what it's good at.
WinActivate "the title of the Minecraft server window"
https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/WinActivate.htm
Send stop{Enter}
https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Send.htm

c programming, disable user input into terminal

Hi is there any possible way to temporarily disable user input into the terminal in c programming language?
There is probably a very good reason why you can't (possible malicious uses) but if its possible, can someone please illustrate how? maybe there is a function, a setting or even an obscure system command?
For context: a friend was having issues with a hard drive, so i created a program which ran a few terminal command and printed the output to a text file which he would send me. It all worked fine, however he didn't really know what he was doing so i printed instructions to the console to instruct him in what to do. although this all worked out, the thought did occur that i could potentially disable user input for that particular terminal window until it was required, and thus the question.
Its also a pretty basic question so if its actually a duplicate (although i could not find one) than please label as such.

Opening Windows console programs in Full Screen Mode

I am developing a C program that prints out a message. The problem with it is that when I run its .exe file, it does not run in fullscreen (until I press alt+enter to force it to full screen). I want the program to run in fullscreen itself when I run it. Is there any way I can do it?
Thanks in advance.
You could call SetConsoleDisplayMode() to force CONSOLE_FULLSCREEN_MODE. Beware that support for this has been disappearing. The last machine I owned that could still do this has been gathering dust for quite a while already. Along with the memory of the loud relay clicking sound, mixed with the high-pitched wail of the flyback transformer in the CRT.

gedit plugin development in C

I'm Interested in writing gedit-plugins in C. I've checked Gedit/NewMDIPluginHowTo
...but haven't had any luck with it.
How can I get more information about writing gedit plugins in C?
If you're willing to use Python instead, here is a tutorial for writing gedit plugins in Python.
The only tutorial is the one you already found :
Gedit/NewMDIPluginHowTo
I know it can be hard to understand in a first view, but if you read it a few times and give it a try with a basic example, you should be able to achieve getting results quite fast.
Is there something specific that you don't understand?
You can also download some examples of plugins available in C:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gedit/-/tree/gnome-2-30/plugins
Well, you can always email some of the core Gedit developers about your question, I'm sure they have something to give. Try find them via Gedit: Help>About>Credits.
Good luck.

Launch OpenGL app straight from a windowless Linux Terminal

How exactly would one go about getting an OpenGL app to run fullscreen straight from the terminal (Ubuntu Server 9.04)? I've developed an application for visual diagnostics on my server, but, I'm not totally sure the best way to get it to run in a windowless environment.
Ideally, I would run my program:
./visualdiagnostics
and have that launch the OpenGL app. Then, via a simple Ctrl+X key binding, I'll kill the app and go back to the terminal.
Do I need to install X11 and then somehow launch it from within the program? What would be the best way to detect if it's already running and, start/stop it if necessary?
And FYI: No, I'm not trying to get this to run over Putty or anything... I have a monitor hooked straight up to the server. The server has proper video drivers installed.
There are several parts to your task. Keep in mind that some of this can be very distro-specific; but since you said Ubuntu we'll talk Ubuntu!
Also you tagged this question C however I am starting off with a common Linux pattern: a native application with a Bash shell script wrapper. Perhaps once you get things working well you might fold that functionality into C if you have to.
Detecting whether X is running
Being root can help a lot. Some things that work.
pgrep Xorg
Check whether /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth exists. This will be there even if nobody has logged in but GDM is running.
ls -l /home/*/.Xauthority (Even if you're not root you can at least confirm whether you are running X.
Piggybacking an existing X session
You did not specifically mention it but if you are root at the console, or if you want to run the app as the same user who is already logged in, it's pretty easy.
You have to get the DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY environment variables right, and once you do you can use the existing X display.
For DISPLAY you might just assume :0 or you could find an existing X program (x-session-manager is the GNOME standard) and read its environment from /proc/PID/environ. Variables are in key=value format delimited by a null byte. For example, if its PID is 12345:
cat /proc/12345/environ \
| ruby -ne 'puts $_.split("\0").select {|e| e.starts_with? "DISPLAY=" }'
For XAUTHORITY you could get it the same way. Or if you prefer guessing, it's almost always /home/whoever/.Xauthority
Once you have those two variables, running X code is easy, for example:
env DISPLAY=:0 XAUTHORITY=/home/brian/.Xauthority ./visualdiagnostics
Stopping X
This one is easy if you're root: /etc/init.d/gdm stop. killall Xorg will work too.
If you are a user, kill your own Xorg or x-session-manager process. (I'd welcome input from others for the canonical way to do this. Maybe some dbus-send message?)
Starting X
I would recommend xinit whose goal in life is to fire X and run exactly one program.
For example: xinit ./visualdiagnostics
You can also tell xinit what resolution to run X at which may or may not be important to you. (This becomes important in the full-screen section below.)
The problem with this is you will have no window manager— no maximize and minimize buttons. It's not just cosmetic. Usually an app is useless because a popup window cannot be moved or you cannot focus on the right input field. However if you have a special app it could be sufficient (see full-screen below).
The next step would be my answer to everything: another shell script wrapper! Something simple that starts the window manager and then becomes your program should work.
#!/bin/bash
#
# Start visualdiagnostics once xinit calls me.
/usr/bin/metacity& # Or ratpoison, or fluxbox, or compiz, etc.
exec ./visualdiagnostics
It's important to exec (become) the main program because once that first program exits, X will shut down.
Running fullscreen
I am not 100% certain on this. Some ideas:
Try the standard X -geometry parameters to set 0,0 as the upper-left corner and +x+y for your horizontal and vertical size. How do you know the size? Either you hard-coded it when you launched xinit or you could ask the X server. xwininfo -root will tell you and there is an xlib API call that would do that too—check the xwininfo source I guess.
Your app itself can request maximization and/or resizing to fill the screen. I'm not familiar but it is definitely in the X API.
Some of the more configurable window managers can be pre-configured to run you maximized already. This is probably what I personally would check first. Your wrapper script could create a $HOME/.fluxboxrc just by echoing some hard-coded configs > the file.
Summary
The others are right. X is not strictly necessary sine OpenGL can run against a framebuffer. However considering how ubiquitous X is and how much work has gone into automating it for distributions, I would probably invest my effort into the X route as it might be easier long-term even though it's a little convoluted.
(By the way, I sincerely hope when you say "terminal" you mean you are at the text console, not gnome-terminal that would be awful! :)
Well I am clearly not sure my answer might help you out.
Long ago when I was student, I manage to do so (launching an openGL app from a terminal only linux installation) by installing frame buffer. As long as I remember I needed to recompile my kernel (as framebuffer was/is a kernel module).
This was maybe 5 years ago on a debian distrib, and I don't know how does it work now for up-to-date debian distrib as Ubuntu. Maybe framebuffer is compiled statically in the binary kernel provided by default with Ubuntu. May be not. Maybe framebuffer is irrelevant now... Or I may be totally wrong and not remembering every details of my own adventure 5 years ago now ..
Have a look on Google ! ;-)
Hope it will help...
**
Update:
**
What is frame buffer ?
How to install it? Here or there
As yves pointed out, you can avoid running the X server if you use the framebuffer. Actually, the framebuffer modules are often yet available (for example, they are used to have the tux logo during the kernel start or a text terminal with fancy images in the background), this anyway depends on the distribution and the settings you are using.
The kernel side is quite primitive so I'd suggest to use some higher level library such as DirectFB. The framebuffer is usable without problems but don't expect the same maturity level than a full blown X server.
Are you trying to have the video be on the monitor connected directly to the computer?
Is X running on the server?
If X is running, you can do
export DISPLAY=:0.0
which tells X apps to connect to the X server at localhost, rather than where' you're coming from.
If you're actually logging in locally (from a direct terminal) ... yes, you need X installed and running.

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