[OctDev] waitbar function

[Quentin S. <qsp...@ie...>]

Hello All,

I have written a function that approximates the functionality of the 
Matlab waitbar function, which shows a progress bar for lengthy 
calculations. I would like to submit it for inclusion in octave-forge, 
but first I have a couple of questions. First is licensing--is there a 
preferred or required license to use?

My second question has to do with the function itself. It is written in 
C, to make it as fast and unobtrusive (CPU-wise) as possible, and has 
similar syntax to the Matlab version, but with some differences because 
it is text, rather than graphics based. Originally I used a row of ASCII 
"#" characters across the terminal (which will look familiar to Linux 
users who have used the rpm -ivh command), however I have since modified 
the function to use reverse-video spaces using color-changing commands 
such as "\033[7m" in the printf command. I like the look of it better, 
but this raises the question of whether it will work in all 
environments. If this is to be made available to a wide audience, it 
needs to work in all possible environments. Are these commands 
universally recognized by all terminal programs in use today? Is there a 
better way to implement this that uses libraries already linked to by 
Octave? Is there a way to detect whether smart terminals are available 
at compile time?

regards,
Quentin Spencer