Re: flashing screen symptoms (an example) (fwd)

[Neil Zanella]

On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Brian Raiter wrote:

> > However can I generalize this statement to the situation where
> > stdscr is partitioned into subwindows {w_i} and where in turn each
> > subwindow w_i is partitioned into subwindows {w_ij} and each w_ij is
> > partitioned into subwindows {w_ijk} and only the w_ijk windows are
> > refreshed? The man page does not say whether or not this will work.
> 
> I don't know. I expect it would work, but what's the point of creating
> the {w_i} and {w_ij} windows, seeing as you never refresh them?

You have just made a very good point. If the statement from the ncurses
man page which states the following is true...

       Note that curses  does  not  handle  overlapping  windows,
       that's  done by the panel(3X) library. This means that you
       can either use stdscr or divide the screen into tiled win­
       dows  and  not  using  stdscr  at all. Mixing the two will
       result in unpredictable, and undesired, effects.

... then there really is no need for subwindows of subwindows in the
scenario where we only refresh bottom level windows. But if the above
statement is really true then what on earth is the purpose of the routines
touchwin() and touchline()?

> >> For my part, I've generally found it simpler to just use stdscr and
> >> calculate the coordinates of subregions in the code, or to go all the
> >> way and use panels. Using tiled subwindows usually makes for more
> >> complicated code in the end.
> > 
> > Obviously you must not be using the scrolling features of separate
> > windows very much.
> 
> For that I went straight to the panels and form libraries.

Before I move onto panels I would like to improve my understanding of
subwindows. It would be nice to figure out the obscure features of
subwindows. The only way I will use panels is if subwindows can't do it.
Since the window structure is simpler than that of a panel I would expect
program binaries that use windows instead of panels to be slightly
smaller in size and perhaps run slightly faster.

Thanks,

Neil