Build window doesn't work as interactive shell on Linux (does on Windows)

[magpie]

I use SlickEdit on Windows more than any other app, and regularly use the build window as my console. This seems to be an unintended use of the build window, but is extremely useful and works pretty well and I would like to use it in the Linux version. However the problem is with interactive programs like ftp or irb (ruby). Most work fine on windows, but in the linux version with ftp or irb I don't get the prompt eg. 'ftp>' . If I type 'help <return>' I get no response, but if I type 'quit <return>' I see the output from help, so its sort of working.

I have tried different settings for
* TERM
* CR w/o LF erases line in build tab
* def_linux1_shell
* def_process_shell
* process window encoding

to no avail. Does anyone have interactive console apps working in the build window ?

[magpie]

On MacOS, at first this didn't work just like Linux. Then I set the mac_process_shell variable to '/bin/bash -i' and now ftp and irb work, just that their prompt doesn't appear.

[Clark]

I tried implementing our Unix process buffer using Pseudo tty's but overall it doesn't work as well.  You can try the code I wrote by invoking SlickEdit with the "+supty" option.  I ran into problems with Ctrl+C and slow performance and well as other problems.  The stdout will flushed though.

[magpie]

Thanks very much Clark for replying! I tried this and it does work (ftp works with prompt displayed) as you say. Yes its slow, but probably fast enough for what I need. Shame about Ctrl C etc not working though. Can this be resolved ?

I think an "integrated, interactive shell with editor features" could be a marketing bullet-point for SlickEdit. Ruby on Rails in particular is very shell-based, and being able to use eg. ctrl-shift-< completion in the shell is extremely useful and unique to SlickEdit as far as I know.

[Clark]

I spent a heck of a lot of time trying to get this to work.  I really wanted it bad.  I don't expect to be able to make this any better.  The good news is that I enhanced the non-pseudo tty code at the same time to make it do smart stuff with passwords.  It gives you the feeling of having a pseudo tty. The remaining problem is primarily with apps that do not flush stdout.  The best fix is for these apps to flush stdout.