CompuServe Thread

#AShell and Conman

7 messages in this thread
#64538From: Kevin FerlazzoSep 5, 1989 12:07 PM
Bill, I've gotta question for you! 🙂 I'm testing out the AShell from ARP v1.3 with Conman 1.3, and opened a new shell with the command: ashell "con:/1/300/100/test/c" It opened the Ashell with the close gadget, as I had wanted, but the close gadget is only partly functional. Clicking on it -seems- to close the console, but doesn't close the CLI window. I have to type ENDCLI within the AShell to close it out. Any other typing gets ignored, just as I would expect if the console were closed. Do you have any idea how to get the close gadget fully functional? I would appreciate it!!
#64555From: Bill HawesSep 5, 1989 6:01 PM
I don't know whether the ARP shell supports the use of the close gadget on console windows or not … the documented action of the close gadget is to turn the console into a NIL:-type device, so that it returns only EOF's when you read from it. Since a console normally doesn't send back an EOF, it's easy for the shell to detect that something special is happening, and it can then choose to close the window. The approach I use in WShell is to count the number of consecutive EOF's received and close when the count hits 5. This avoids accidental closing from entering a CTRL-\ (which is documented as the "EOF" character). For further safety I modify the prompt string to say "Ending nn …" for the last three EOF's. It's actually rather nice being able to close the window with either a close gadget or CTRL-\s; if I don't feel like reaching for the mouse I can just hit a bunch of CTRL-\s.
#64635From: Kevin FerlazzoSep 6, 1989 8:55 AM
Yep, this is the kind of thing that makes me glad I have WShell! Hmm, it occurs to me that I didn't explain that my friend was trying to get it to work on his home Amiga, so we tried it here on my work Amiga. When it didn't work I sent you that message. I'm trying to talk my friend into buying WShell, but he wants to check out the PD or freely re-distributable shells first.
#64641From: Ken CooperSep 6, 1989 10:49 AM
I think I've used the Crtl \\\\\ in Wshell to close a window, maybe twice in the last couple of years. In the first month of having the A1000 3 years ago, I copied Endcli to ram: and renamed it \\ (the backlash key is as close to the RETURN key as you can get). to the C directory. Now having the ability to make some programs resident like \\, the window disappears as fast as it takes to hit the keys. As for being able to use the mouse to hit the close gadget provided thru Wshell, it's a good feature.
#64679From: Bill HawesSep 6, 1989 6:48 PM
There is one other reason to occasionally use the CTRL-\\\\\ trick to close the shell, instead of the close gadget. When you hit the close gadget, the console goes into its "I'm NIL: and trying to close" mood, and to encourage all openers to close their filehandles, it issues control-C breaks to anyone who continues writing to the window. This usually works well, but if for example you want the program currently running to exit normally, it's best not to hit the close gadget. CTRL-\\\\\ gets queued up like normal typeahead input and so takes effect after the program exits. Of course your renamed ENDCLI command would work fine in this case as well.
#64663From: John DraperSep 6, 1989 1:55 PM
One possibility… if you have RUN something from that shell, the program you ran will have a lock on the console, in the same way that a CLI will not end with the ENDCLI command if you have RUN something from it. Try opening a console in the same way, and without running anything else, try closing it with the CLOSE gadget. Ignore this if you've already tried this.
#65425From: microsmithsSep 12, 1989 1:17 AM
Kevin – sorry, ASH doesn't currently recognize CONMAN's close gadget handling … that's something I'd like to see as well, so I'll bug Scott to work on it before the next ASH release. Currently ASH expects to see the input filehandle set the same way the "ENDCLI" program sets it, which is slightly different from the way the close gadget sets the stream. …cheath