Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!jwt!john
From: john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Getting better scrolling from curses?
Message-ID: <1991Jun11.211657.17798@jwt.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jun 91 21:16:57 GMT
Organization: Private System -- Orlando, FL
Lines: 18


I've got a couple of curses application which split the screen into two
horizontal windows.  Both windows display scrolling text.  I do a
scrollok(TRUE) and idlok(TRUE) on each window.  The first problem is
the speed of the scrolling -- it's about 25% of the speed of catting a
file to the console (if that).  Even with a full screen window, the
scrolling speed is about the same.  Is it just that curses is slow, or
is there a better way to do what I want?

The second problem occurs when scrolling the upper window in one of
these applications.  With idlok() enabled, the lower window jumps up
and down a line for every line the upper window scrolls.  The bottom
window becomes a blur while the top window is scrolling.  If I turn off
idlok(), the unpleasant artifacts disappear, but scrolling speed falls
dramatically, while CPU consumption rises.  Is there any way to get
clean, fast scrolling in two windows like this?
-- 
John W. Temples -- john@jwt.UUCP (uunet!jwt!john)