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[Arkenstone]

Hello, I've been trying to make a DF-style TUI (Terminal User Interface) for some time now, but I've been having some problems.  I can do the graphics easily enough with a normal graphical output, (although I've been having trouble finding one that will take individual pixel color assignments without linearizing) but what I haven't been able to find is a way to read the keyboard in real-time.

Nobody at my college seems to know this, so I must resort to asking if anyone on the forum knows.  I'd prefer the answer in C++ (or better yet, an assembly language) but I'll take any form I can get.  Oh, and if you can tell me how to read the CPU's timer, that'd be nice too.


Oh, and to clarify before someone makes the mistake: I do not want a program that will do this for me.  I actually want to do as much as possible myself, the more control I have the better.  I only want a way to read what keys are being (or have been) pressed; I can do all the looping for a real-time reading of said keys easily enough.  I also have an idea for having keystrokes being stored on a queque should some actions take a while, so please don't go into multithreading or anything like that.

[Thief^]

It's platform-specific. What platform are you coding for?

[Arkenstone]

Well, Windows/PC I suppose; but I wouldn't mind knowing methods for all the platforms... 

[Urist McDepravity]

Hello, I've been trying to make a DF-style TUI (Terminal User Interface) for some time now, but I've been having some problems.  I can do the graphics easily enough with a normal graphical output, (although I've been having trouble finding one that will take individual pixel color assignments without linearizing) but what I haven't been able to find is a way to read the keyboard in real-time.

DF uses OpenGL for rendering and SDL for input (mouse and keyb) processing.
This part is open-sourced, so you can look at the code at Baughn's repository at github: https://github.com/Baughn/Dwarf-Fortress--libgraphics-

[Ethicalfive]

Not really sure if I quite understand, but Autohotkeys (C-C++ scripting language) is built for input-output handling, has COM and DLL support.. Reads key inputs and sends a range of key outputs, decent GUI support, tcp/ip capabilities.

Maybe DFhack can read DF's action buffer or whatever it uses to store keypresses(not sure it does buffer them directly though).

Anyhow, take a look at DFhack and Autohotkeys, either of those may be useful to you.

[Thief^]

Well, Windows/PC I suppose; but I wouldn't mind knowing methods for all the platforms... 

In a Windows app, the best method (unless using a layer like DirectX or SDL) is to handle the WM_CHAR, or WM_KEYDOWN and WM_KEYUP window messages. You'll always get the keydown and keyup messages even for short presses, it's a billion miles better than polling the key states.
For a console app use _kbhit() and _getch() (I think)

[Urist McDepravity]

unless using a layer like DirectX or SDL

I'd strongly advice against using any win-specific stuff directly for any big project. Why lock yourself into windows-only, and rely on low-level API while there are many good cross-platform libraries for that?
SDL is good for starters, altho its graphics subsystem isn't too great.

Oh, and make sure you handle unicode correctly. World is not limited to ASCII, and different locales are constant source of all kinds of problems.