At 22:24 30-11-2010 -0800, Adrian Petrescu wrote:
Is this open for discussion? I really, really liked the readline support (including in OS X), and sorely miss it now that it's gone. I'll volunteer to help debug whatever issues plagued the OS X build if it helps bring it back.
The point is that the functionality offerered by GNU ReadLine in the X-term window (local line editing and recalling command history) is already offered in the ICS Input Box. IMO this solution is superior to what a perfectly workng ReadLine can offer, as the latter would still cutter up the window when there is ICS output during the typing of a line. It would repeat the part of the line you had already typed below the output, but the partially entered line would still stay above that output, and pollute the display. The ICS Input Box does not have that problem. My long-term aim is to eliminate the use of the X-term console alltogether, and make the output also go in what is now the ICS Input Box, equiping the latter with an output text widget, so it becomes a full-blast ICS Interaction Window, WinBoard style. I could then also implement the ICS text menu in it, for right-clicks on that widget. The problem with the X-term is that it is not a child of the XBoard widget hierarchy, so that XBoard cannot control its sizing, positioning, attach callbacks to it, or whatever. At least I would not know how to do any of that. In a widget spawned by XBoard the whole book of tricks is available. I have actually made a start working on this some time ago, and the result is in the 'chat' branch of the hgm.nubati.net repository. It worked nicely, except that I could not find a way to colorize the text on a line-by-line basis in a text widget. This put a stop to that line of development. The original plan was to, once the interaction window was working, allow multiple copies of it to pop up as dedicated chat windows similar to those in WinBoard.
