Vote: Terminal Behavior

[Tim Wessman]

Quick poll:

Since it appears there are many people trying to use the terminal to display large amounts of data and text in programs, I would like some input on the default output terminal behavior.

We originally planned that it would NOT scroll to the end by default to ensure the user would see the information in order without having to manually run up to the top of the screen. This felt like it would be the correct behavior since unlike a traditional terminal, this is on a very small screen. Putting pages of information up onto it would be a "bad thing" and if you are doing that... chances are there is a better way to do what you are trying to do.

However, as stated, may people seem to be dumping large amounts of text onto the screen and wanting to go back and look at it later.

You can currently do this:
print("...");
wait();
print(); //clear previous text
print("...");
wait();

..and your most recent text should always be at the top (provided it fits on a single page of printing).

The question is thus: "Should the output terminal default be to always show the last character that was printed?"

The downside I see is that you *STILL* will have the problem of not being able to interact with the output terminal during a program run, so unless your output fits on a single screen anyway, you will be cutting off some data regardless.

I cannot give any information regarding time until potential terminal enhancements are done giving more complete control, but a quick change to default position after a print happens could most likely be done much quicker.