[plug] C/C++ Programmers Only: Using NCurses and Terminals.

[David Buddrige]

Hi all,

I am wanting to write a kind of (text-mode) menu program that  would
allow you to run any text-mode program that you can run in a terminal
such as pico or vi using a basic exec() call but which displays the
output of that program in a text-mode window (rather than taking over
the entire terminal).  I then want to be able to take over the bottom
two or three lines to display various information from the actual menu
program itself.

I've been messing around with various ncurses routines - especially the
subwin method and have put a couple of text windows on the screen - this
was easy... however I am trying to determine if it is possible to use
WINDOW  to display a TERMINAL, rather than simply having a single
TERMINAL per screen.

I can create multiple terminals using the newterm function, but as far
as I can tell, this simply creates another full terminal that then takes
over the entire screen.  I may be going about this in entirely the wrong
way - do I need to code some kind of "Special" terminal of my own, or
perhaps some other method????

Most of previous C++ experience has been with Turbo C++ under DOS ...
8-(

Thanks heaps for any pointers anyone can give

regards

David Buddrige... 8-)