Trouble with 24 bit RGB in Windows consoles

[sillycowvalley]

Before I switched to Terminal.Gui I had success in Windows cmd console and PowerShell using ANSI control characters for true RGB colour.

Now I'm seeing the correct colours when I run from the Visual Studio debugger but not when I run from the consoles (cmd and PowerShell) on Windows. I'm publishing to a single file executable but I have verified that the same problem exists if I don't use single file.

Left to right: cmd, PowerShell, debug console from Visual Studio.

Thanks again for your help.

Note: the colours are perfect when I publish to a single file binary for Linux (running on my Chromebook).

[tznind]

Can you provide some more information please.

Before I switched to Terminal.Gui [...]

Are you trying to mix native console write code while Terminal.Gui is running? or after Shutdown? when did your code stop working? Just after adding a reference to Terminal.Gui or after initialization?

The normal way to get true color in Terminal.Gui is to set the color in your view using SetAttribute:

private class MyView : View
{
    /// <inheritdoc />
    protected override bool OnDrawingContent (DrawContext? context)
    {
        SetAttribute (new Attribute (new Color (232, 112, 23), new Color (23, 255, 51)));

        Move (0, 0);
        AddStr ("Hello");

        return true;
    }
}
private static int Main (string [] args)
{
    Application.Init (null, "v2");
    var w = new Window ();

    w.Add (
           new MyView ()
           {
               Width = 10,
               Height = 10,
           });
    Application.Run (w);
    Application.Shutdown ();
    return 0;
}

[BDisp]

Sorry that really isn't more valid. Use Application.Init(null, "NetDriver").

[sillycowvalley]

Application.Init(null, "NetDriver") fixed the colours. Looks excellent.

Now I have a very strange performance issue: keyboard events are super slow (mouse events seem at regular speed: I can quickly scroll up and down in a text editor using the mouse wheel but typing is just a non-starter). Same in both cmd console and PowerShell. Terminal.Gui seems to be hogging the processor (my VM running on a worker thread seems to get almost no cycles with NetDriver at the helm).

I switched back to "v2" to confirm that the performance issue goes away when not using "NetDriver" ("v2" is remarkable fast, even when scrolling through a large document in my text editor: zero flicker).

"v2" is awesome in every other way (except for the colour issue). And on Linux, no issues.

[BDisp]

The old drivers will be removed in the v2 due to performance issues. @tznind maybe is a good idea to leverage what is working fine with colors in the NetDriver and try fix it in the v2net and probably in the v2win?

[tznind]

And on Linux, no issues.

There are actually two v2 drivers v2net (works on windows and linux) and v2win (windows only). Specifying v2 will make the app use v2win on windows or v2net for linux.

[...] but it introduces new problems (specifically, arrow keys and shortcuts are now unreliable).

It would be good to know more, which shortcuts are unreliable? How does this manifest? AnsiResponseParser and specifically NetInput are pretty advanced but may have outstanding functionality holes. I would like to work with you to understand what is missing and if it is an issue with the terminals themselves or bad parsing code in Terminal.Gui

Setting the Logging.Logger to a trace level logger will record all the raw input events that can give insight or you can just describe what is/isn't working.

This describes ansi code etc logging:
https://gui-cs.github.io/Terminal.Gui/docs/logging.html

[sillycowvalley]

I would like to work with you to understand what is missing and if it is an issue with the terminals themselves or bad parsing code in Terminal.Gui

Thanks @tznind. Published my first release that uses Terminal.Gui a few minutes ago which includes Linux-x64 Hopper Development Environment:
https://github.com/sillycowvalley/Hopper/releases

Pi 5 arrives today so I can test Linux-ARM ...

I'd definitely like to resolve the issues so that I can have a single project for Linux, macOS and Windows (get rid of my old Windows.Forms project).

Direct communication? Discord?

[sillycowvalley]

On the plus side, I'm making great progress with mouse events (one of my primary reasons for switching to Terminal.Gui). I just got the scroll wheel working smoothly in my editor. Great library!