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From: Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2015 12:10:00 +0100
Subject: Re: A high-level cross-platform API for terminal/console access
To: Peter Brittain <peter.brittain.os@gmail.com>
Cc: Python List <python-list@python.org>
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On 22 October 2015 at 11:56, Peter Brittain <peter.brittain.os@gmail.com> w=
rote:
> On Thursday, October 22, 2015 at 10:24:11 AM UTC+1, Laura Creighton wrote=
:
>> Fredrik Lundh's console implementation
>> http://effbot.org/zone/console-handbook.htm
>> might be of interest in that case, but I think it is 'old versions
>> of windows only'.  But it's a different take on the abstraction
>> problem.  I haven't used it for something like 15 years now, though,
>> so can barely remember it ...
>
> Thanks, but I think this is already covered in my original post: I couldn=
't use it directly due to the pip installation restriction.  I've now creat=
ed a working Windows implementation, so I don't need another mapping for wi=
n32.
>
> More generally, as these posts begin to show, there was no _simple_ way f=
or me to get a cross-platform console API that "just worked" out of the box=
.  I've had to jump through various hoops to get to where I am and don't th=
ink that other people should have to go through the same pain as I have.

I've looked for this in the past and I also found that there was no
general solution that I could just pick and use for both Windows and
everything else. Even just writing a cross-platform getch function is
needlessly complicated.

> This is one of the reasons why I've been tidying up my package to make th=
is as simple as possible for the next person.  I've now got to the stage wh=
ere I have something that works for me, but it is almost certainly missing =
something.  Maybe it's not good enough documentation, maybe there's some cl=
unkiness left in the API due to the history of the project, maybe there's a=
n even better way to represent terminals than what I've come up with so far=
?
>
> I was hoping for feedback on this front rather than other ways I could re=
create the curses package - unless of course, the general consensus is that=
 this really is the way that Python should expose access to the terminal/co=
nsole.

Thanks for creating this. I will try it out when I next want to create
something like this and give some feedback then. I don't really know
when that will be though...

--
Oscar