Support ansi escape code conversion for windows

[DartBot]

This issue was originally filed by @seaneagan

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It's supported by nodeJS, which allows using colors etc. in console output, without making special cases for windows.

It's implemented in:

https://github.com/joyent/libuv/blob/master/src/win/tty.c

and:

https://github.com/adoxa/ansicon

I wonder if it would be possible to pull either of these libraries in as third party deps, or if not, if they would be interested in making that possible.

[lrhn]

I'm not sure I understand what you want.
ANSI escape sequences are usually interpreted by the terminal, so what would you want Dart to do?
Is this an MS Windows only request?

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Added NeedsInfo label.

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by @zoechi

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This is a Windows only-request. The Windows terminal doesn't support ANSI escape sequences.

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21269769/clearing-the-terminal-screen-in-a-command-line-dart-app
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16755142/how-to-make-win32-console-recognize-ansi-vt100-escape-sequences
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/101875
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24316588/dart-server-side-ansi-terminal-support

[lrhn]

Ok, so the standalone VM on Windows should detect ANSI escape sequences on stdout and convert them to something that the windows terminal does understand.

A workaround is to use a non-default console application, or use a wrapper like ansicon.

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Added Area-VM, OpSys-Windows, Triaged labels.

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by @seaneagan

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Re ansicon: The way to distribute CLI apps in dart is pub global activate cli_app and the binstubs that that generates cannot be customized at all, much less per operating system, so as a CLI author, using ansicon as a wrapper is not an option. It would also be an extra dependency for a CLI user to have to install.

Re non-default console application: As a CLI author, it would be very difficult to get your windows users to switch console applications just to be able to use your CLI (or certain functionality of your CLI). cmd.exe and PowerShell are both shipped by default now on Windows, and git bash:

http://msysgit.github.io/

is probably the next most popular. NodeJS scripts which use ansi escape codes just work out of the box on all these consoles, and with the popularity of node apps such as npm, bower, yo, grunt, gulp, which all use color output, having to explain to your users that dart doesn't support this might make you think twice about using using dart.

[iposva-google]

This really should go into a package which controls the TTY.

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cc @turnidge.
Added NotPlanned label.

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by @seaneagan

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Is it possible to write packages that call C APIs? And only do so on Windows?

[DartBot]

This comment was originally written by @seaneagan

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Would need to implement something like this in dart:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/colorama

A bit daunting, but it has been done.