How to use conio.h?

[blueeyedlion]

I'm interested in using conio.h, but I have no idea how to use it, and google has not been helpful. Could someone point me to some kind of conio.h tutorial?

[Athar]

conio.h isn't part of the C++ standard.
But well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conio.h

[blueeyedlion]

Thanks, but doesn't conio.h have some way of using colour in the console?

[Duthomhas]

No, it doesn't.

Are you targeting any one specific platform, like Windows? Or must your code work cross-platform?

[blueeyedlion]

windows, and if it's convenient, ubuntu too.

[Duthomhas]

Nothing platform-specific is particularly convenient, but if you wish to do both Windows and *nix then I recommend you to the NCurses library.

For use on POSIX platforms (like Ubuntu): NCurses
http://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/

For use on Windows: PDCurses
http://pdcurses.sourceforge.net/

Both are highly compatible and, unless you are doing something the documentation says is specific to one or the other, they should work identically.

Here are some useful links:

Links for getting started: http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/windows/15935/#msg79025
Basics: http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/5796/#msg25862
Basic example ("Press the 'any' key"): http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/497/#msg1734
Informative example: http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/4520/#msg19965
Basic color example: http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/11032/2/#msg52617
Another color example: http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/11032/#msg52049

Wikipedia article & links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses
"NCURSES programming HOWTO": http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/

Be sure to look around for good documentation too. A good start is to Google for "man curses".

Hope this helps.

[blueeyedlion]

Actually, the whole reason that I am looking into conio.h is that I tried to get pdcurses working for about a week with no success. Do you know an easy way to get pdcurses working with the gnu compiler in code blocks?

[ultifinitus]

Well why are you interested in it at all? Why not just go completely graphical with SDL or SFML or OpenGL or DirectX or WinAPI or QT or any other library/API that lets you program graphically?

[blueeyedlion]

Well, I'm planning on using something like that in the relatively near future, but I'm just learning c++ and I thought that a simpler display would be easier. Do you have a recommendation for a graphical library?

[ultifinitus]

Haha as is the custom:

SDL http://lazyfoo.net

SFML http://sfml-dev.org

Both are easy to get up and running quickly.