Thread: Point me in the right direction

Just wondering if anyone knew of any links or had any info about changing the console. I.E. text, background......?

I have hijacked my wifes DNS, (she's not using it right now anyway). You can now get to my home page here. Go to software site and then to the console tutorials. Parts 4 and 5 should be of particular interest to your project.

Thank You!

@adrianxw: seahorsetextiles? Right...
Did you ever figure out what happened to your DNS server?

>>> Did you ever figure out what happened to your DNS server?

Beats me, is working again now. I was unable to get into their contact page, was 404'ing, their e-mail was bouncing, even the telephone number, (in the damn US), was not working.

Seahorse Textiles is another of my domains, currently the http site there has nothing on it really, (she has not decided what she wants).

Do you know of any place where I could get more information on this topic? I tried to search google, but the only thing that came up was your page

Originally posted by adrianxw
I have hijacked my wifes DNS, (she's not using it right now anyway). You can now get to my home page here. Go to software site and then to the console tutorials. Parts 4 and 5 should be of particular interest to your project.

All the info on your page was very usefull. Two things:

1) I didn't understand how to implement the keyboard and mouse functions in my program.
2) These topics just seem to graze the tip of the ice berg.

I was serching through the message board and came across a game that dood(that was his name I think) wrote. It was a tetris game. I want to be able to make the console do things like that. Problem is, I don't know where to go to get the information. Will I have to learn a little windows programming to do that?
Here is the link to the thread he posted. His design is amazing and I will be danmed if I could understand his code, as he doesn't use very much commenting. So if someone could explain what he is using to change the console or just point me in the right direction as to where to get this kind of information. I would be very greatfull. Thanks again adrianxw

Ooops. Sorry forgot the thread link.
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showt...ghlight=tetris

>>> Will I have to learn a little windows programming to do that?

I had a quick browse through the source, and there does not appear to be any "Windows", i.e. GUI Windows programming in there, it is acheived with the console functions - I didn't look at all of it, but many of the salient parts.

>>> I didn't understand how to implement the keyboard and mouse functions in my program.

Generally, you design your program with the control structure in mind, retro fitting a new control structure is always difficult, and frequently not worth the bother.

>>> These topics just seem to graze the tip of the ice berg.

My tutorials, although fairly brief, do actually cover a great many of the available console API routines. Of course I could always write more, but then if they get too long, nobody bothers to read them, or they become so complicated that they loose the whole point of a tut.

>>> any place where I could get more information

The reason I wrote my tutorial was because there seemed to be very little else out there, and questions about consoles came up on the board all the time.

>>> what he is using to change the console

What do you mean by that for example?

I meant like what header files is he using and how is he calling them. For example the change the text you have to include <windows.h> and then something like this to call a function?:

Code:

   SetConsoleTextAttribute(hOut,
                           FOREGROUND_BLUE | FOREGROUND_GREEN |FOREGROUND_INTENSITY);

Once I get the header file I need how will I know what function to use? IF it is a function.

The console functions are, (ultimately), in windows.h, (in fact they are dotted around in a few places but they are all included in windows.h, so if you've got that you've got them. So you have the header.

>>>
For example the change the text you have to include <windows.h> and then something like this to call a function?:
<<<

Correct. This is covered in my tutorial, part 4. You use the SetConsoleTextAttribute() function to set foreground and background colours. If you browse his code, he is using exactly the same header and function to acheive that. No magic. The example in your message will have text that is bright cyan on a black background.

But also, when you run the program, the console is resized to fullscreen and the entire screen is BLUE! That alone is something that I would like to be able to do. I also browsed through his code but couldn't find out how he did it.

>>> the console is resized to fullscreen

So read the section on going full screen in part 6 of the tutorial, and...

>>> entire screen is BLUE!

... read the section in part 2 of the tutorial covering filling the screen, (or part of), with a character and fill it with a space character set to blue background covered in part 4 of the tutorial.

Jeesh, come on, think a bit!

Well if memory serves me right the way you explain it is that I could use spaces all across the screen and put text where I need it......thats my train of thought. If that is what you are thinking than to understand what I want you would have to look at his program because I can't explain it. I will re-read over you site again as sometime I can be a hasty reader. But I don't recall you saying anything about a complete background color change.[edit]
without using spaces[/edit]