[Freemint-list] Handling of PRGs/APPs which console output

[Jo Even Skarstein]

On fr., 2017-01-06 at 01:13 +1000, Miro Kropáček wrote:
> So my proposal / question is: what do you think of this setup:
>       * during the boot, console is normally printed
>       * as soon as XaAES is started, console output is redirected
>         to /dev/null
>       * so every PRG/APP wouldn't print one single letter anywhere
>       * if you have an app for which you do want to see some output,
>         enable in XAAES.CNF a flag called "open_console" (or something
>         similar) which would lead to running the PRG/APP using $TOSRUN
>         (usually TosWin2), with its own console window and output
>         printed there (optionally redirected to a file, using
>         TosWin2's logging option)
>       * as soon as the app in question terminates, its console window
>         is closed

As posted on the Firebee dev forum - I have some objections ;)

Basically I think this approach is wrong. I think the current behaviour
of MiNT (*) and XaAES is correct. Output to stdout should always be
presented to the user.

Yes, TosWin2 has it's bugs and it's not a good program for GEM-oriented
users. But I don't think the solution is to complicate XaAES with more
options, forcing the user to edit a config file just to see debug
output. First of all - it's cumbersome. Secondly - the same can be
achieved today just by launching the program from a shell or by telling
the desktop (atleast Teradesk can do this) to open the program as a
TOS-program. So I don't see the use for this feature.

This problem should be dealt with outside of XaAES. Improve TosWin2,
write a new console, or simply run a tiny program that
opens /dev/xconout2 thus inhibiting any output to stdout from messing up
the screen.

Jo Even

(* atleast the ext2.xfs module outputs messages to stdout or stderr.
This I think is wrong. However, *error messages* from the kernel must be
presented to the user, even when no GEM console is active.)