User:Erik G/Sandbox 1
The Taskwindow module is intended to allow programs which do not call SWI Wimp_Poll to be pre-emptively scheduled in the RISC OS desktop. -- PRM TaskWindow: Introduction and Overview
Most RISC OS users will know this from the interactive window they use to type CLI commands in. It also has a mode where a user task can directly process all output of the target program, and send input to it if required.
Terminology
For the purpose of this article, the following definitions are used:
- Child
- The task created by the TaskWindow module which runs the target program and sends the output of the target to the Parent using messages.
- Parent
- The task which communicates with the Child through messages and processes and/or displays the output of the Child.
- Target
- The program which does not call Wimp_Poll. Running this is the whole purpose of the TaskWindow system. The Target is specified in the <command> parameter of the TaskWindow command.
- Source
- The task that issues a TaskWindow command. In Direct mode this is the same as the Parent.
- Server
- An application which can act as a Parent on behalf of the Source.
Direct Mode
In this mode the source task issuing the TaskWindow command (which could be a user application) acts as the Parent and should handle messages from and to the Child itself. This mode is entered by issuing the TaskWindow command with the -task option:
TaskWindow <command> [<other options>] -task &xxxxxxxx [-txt &yyyyyyyy]
Server Mode
In this mode the source task issuing the TaskWindow command lets a server application (usually the default text editor) act as the Parent.
This server will display the output of the target and accept the keyboard input and send it to the target.
