newRPL: proposal for Alpha mode

[Claudio L.]

(05-04-2015 05:02 AM)HrastProgrammer Wrote:  

(05-03-2015 09:40 PM)Sukiari Wrote:  I don't like this idea. I think this is a perfect thing to put on the status line, not in the prompt itself. I think it could be distracting - if you move the cursor over another character, it will blink between the two?

Yes, this wouldn't be very nice. On Spectrum and ZX81 it worked because they are always in insert mode and the cursor is always positioned between two consecutive characters.

Correct, but having the cursor take physical space like in a Spectrum required redrawing the whole text line each time you move the cursor, so in this case it will be implemented like any other cursor, where it overlaps the text behind (although I always liked the way characters "flow" through the cursor in those old machines).

Yes, it will blink between two characters, except the cursor is always inverted!, So even if the character behind is identical, it will invert and blink.
Right now there's a blinking arrow, that appears and disappears in front of the text. What I'm proposing is a black rectangle with a letter inside, that appears and disappears in front of the text. From an arrow to something else is not a revolutionary change, I'd say it's about the same except it carries useful information.

(05-04-2015 05:02 AM)HrastProgrammer Wrote:  I actually like the idea of "self-describing" cursor because you don't have to have a status line so you can use the full display for editor. In my HRAST BASIC I have a solid cursor when the editor is in insert mode and a transparent cursor (blinking between a character and inverse-character) if it is in overwrite mode. Unfortunately, this doesn't cover uppercase/lowercase modes but I decided not to add a status line because full display for the editor was much more important to me.

That's exactly my point: we have 131x80 pixels only, and each pixel we can save is very valuable.