<p>For certain programs nothing beats the command line. Unfortunately, I have never seen good documentation or examples on how to write console applications that go beyond "Hello World".  I'm interested in making console apps like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_(text_editor)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Vim</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacs</a>.  Well not exactly like Vim or Emacs but one that takes over the entire command prompt while it is in use and then after you exit it leaves no trace behind. I know that on Unix there is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curses_(programming_library)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">curses library</a> but for Windows? ...</p>

[{'answer_id': 43275, 'author': 'Brad Wilson', 'author_id': 1554, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1554', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://pdcurses.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PDCurses</a> works on Win32.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 43277, 'author': 'Eugene Yokota', 'author_id': 3827, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3827', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I found <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682073.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">List of Console Functions</a> on msdn, <a href="http://pdcurses.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PDCurses</a>, and <a href="http://www.effbot.org/zone/console-handbook.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Console Module</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 43281, 'author': 'domlao', 'author_id': 130278, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/130278', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>In Windows or DOS, I used the conio library from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Borland</a>. It\'s very old but fine enough for a beginner like me.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 43286, 'author': 'robsoft', 'author_id': 3897, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3897', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>You can certainly write that kind of application with Delphi, which has reasonable commandline support. People often overlook that Delphi can build any kind of Windows executable, not just GUI apps.</p>\n\n<p>I don't know off-hand if the free 'Turbo' edition of Delphi has anything cobbled into it to PREVENT you from using it to build console apps - I would have thought it would be fine for this kind of thing.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 43497, 'author': 'dcraggs', 'author_id': 4382, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4382', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>As Robsoft says Delphi would be a good start. There is Turbo Delphi (Pascal based) or Turbo C++ both free editions.</p>\n\n<p>web site here.</p>\n\n<p><a href="http://www.turboexplorer.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.turboexplorer.com/</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 43559, 'author': 'jason saldo', 'author_id': 1293, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1293', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Check out some of the <a href="http://www.go-mono.com/docs/index.aspx?link=N:Mono.Terminal" rel="nofollow noreferrer">mono libs</a>.  They have a great one to parse command line arguments but can\'t remember the namespace.<br>\nMiguel just posted some <a href="http://tirania.org/blog/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">terminal code</a> as well. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 91937, 'author': 'Loesje', 'author_id': 17559, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/17559', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>You could also try <a href="http://www.freepascal.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Free Pascal</a>. It is a free ((L)<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License" rel="nofollow noreferrer">GPL</a>) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Pascal" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Object Pascal</a> compiler which is compatible with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeGear_Delphi" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Delphi</a>-compiler. It has an console-based IDE, which proves that you can make very good console-applications with it, and which you can use as an example.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to use a graphical IDE to build your console-application, you can download the <a href="http://lazarus.freepascal.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lazarus</a> IDE. </p>\n\n<p>As a bonus your application will run on Windows (32/64 bit), Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris etc...</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 293787, 'author': 'Rob Kam', 'author_id': 25093, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/25093', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>There is a small but good tutorial on using C++ for the Windows console at <a href="http://www.benryves.com/tutorials/?t=winconsole&amp;c=all" rel="nofollow noreferrer">www.benryves.com/tutorials/?t=winconsole&amp;c=all</a> going as far as coding a simple painting program.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 12825008, 'author': 'Searush', 'author_id': 1587402, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1587402', 'pm_score': -1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>This is the best tool for it I\'ve ever seen!!<br>\n1) Create any application using <strong><em>VB6 IDE</em></strong><br>\n2) Convert it to <strong><em>Console Application</em></strong>, using <a href="http://nirsoft.net/vb/console_application_visual_basic.html" rel="nofollow"><strong>THIS!</strong></a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 32293932, 'author': 'user5555332', 'author_id': 5107566, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5107566', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>For ncurses-like library/framework on Windows, I\'ll highly suggest to get your hand dirty with <a href="http://pdcurses.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow">PDCurses</a>. </p>\n\n<p>If you trying/using C#, there\'s <a href="http://curses-sharp.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow">Curses-Sharp</a>.</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/43267', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4491/']