Character windowsΒΆ
Sculptor programs may be run under a GUI 32-bit Windows environment or under Sculptor character windows. The use of character windows enables screens to be drawn in non-Windows environments such as MS-DOS or UNIX. A program running under character windows must not rely on any commands, functions or controls that are clearly GUI windows or Microsoft specific. The list of these is too exhaustive for individual documentation to be feasible; common sense should serve, in most circumstances, to determine whether a feature can be used in character windows.
This section documents elements of the Sculptor language that are specific to character windows or that have different functionality under character windows. Differences between the two implementation types fall most commonly, though not exclusively, in the area of visual display. Any item of Sculptor syntax which is not compatible with the platform in which the program is being run is ignored.
Some Sculptor programs - including all the runtime interpreters - have different names for use under character windows. See The character windows program suite for a full listing of Sculptor programs and utilities implemented for character windows.
All character windows programs must use a character-based grid for the positioning and sizing of windows and controls. This is achieved by the !chargrid ON declaration. See Pixel and character positioning.
It may be desirable to include different sections of code in the same program, one to be executed if the program is run under GUI, the other if the program is run under character windows. The users() function can be used to obtain the operating system.