microsoft / microsoft/terminal
Reading extended attributes (RGB colors) from the screen buffer
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- Dominant language
- C++
- Stars
- 105k
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- Merged PRs (30d)
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Description
TL;DR: How?
Scenario: an app needs to read a part of the screen buffer, output something, and then, when needed, restore the original buffer content.
ReadConsoleOutput always worked seamlessly for that, but now Windows supports 256 colours, true colours and underline text, but CHAR_INFO.Attributes is still WORD and obviously can't hold all that luxury.
I remember reading somewhere that you don't have plans to extend output APIs (WriteConsoleOutput and friends) because it can be achieved with VT sequences (with limitations, inconvenience, more work, but, technically - yes, it can), but what about reading?
I tried to search first and found this comment, but I don't think that #57 would help here - no 3rd-party terminals involved in this case, we're reading purely static data.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
The issue discusses ReadConsoleOutput, WriteConsoleOutput, and CHAR_INFO.Attributes, but names no implementation files or tests. Start by reviewing those console APIs and the linked discussion, then determine whether an accepted approach exists for reading extended attributes; the issue does not define a concrete completion criterion.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- cpp
- Domain
- cli, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100