Question

Why this piece of code here:

#include <ncurses.h>
#define WIN 5
#define WI win[0]
#define WC win[1]

int ymax, xmax;
WINDOW *win[WIN];

int main(void)
{

    int i;
    initscr();
    cbreak();
    start_color();
    curs_set(0);
    noecho();
    init_pair(1,COLOR_GREEN,COLOR_BLACK);

    getmaxyx(stdscr, ymax, xmax);
    for(i=0; i<WIN; i++)
        win[i]= newwin(ymax, xmax, 0, 0);
    keypad(stdscr, TRUE);   /* We get F1, F2 etc..      */
    keypad(win[0], TRUE);   /* We get F1, F2 etc..      */

    refresh();

    wprintw(WI, "Screen 1\n");
    wprintw(WC, "Screen 2\n");

    wattrset(WI, COLOR_PAIR(1));
    wrefresh(WI);

    getch();
    endwin();
    printf("\nThanks for playing\n");
    return 0;
}

does not work if I delete the

refresh();

line?

Also, please, I’m new to this ncurses stuff, so if you see any other misconcept, be kind to point, specially the procedure to exit without leaving loose ends.

Answer 1

The problem is that one cannot mix getch() with other windows. getch() do a refresh(). One should use wgetch(WI) instead.

Still puzzles me why using the refresh() in the begin of the code made the text appear. But I think that to understand this behavior I would need to post the entire code to see how the functions mix all the screens.

Now with wgetch() the problem is gone.