Win32 Console - Window and Full Screen Modes

Window and Full Screen Modes

A Win32 console application may run in two modes.

One mode places the text in a window and uses an operating system's font rendering. In this mode, an application's interaction with user is controlled by the windowing system. This is analogous to X Window applications like xterm.

In a full screen mode Win32 console uses a hardware text mode and uploads a raster font to the video adapter. This is analogous to a text system console. Full screen uses Windows' built-in VGA driver, rather than any installed graphics drivers, unless another driver is VGA-compatible. Therefore, it only supports VGA-compatible text modes, giving it a maximum character resolution of 80 columns by 28 rows. This contrasts with comparable consoles in various other operating systems such as Linux, which are able to display higher resolutions through different drivers.

An application can be instantly switched between these two modes with Alt-↵ Enter key combination. Text environments in Unix-like systems usually do not have such feature.

Read more about this topic:  Win32 Console

Famous quotes containing the words window, full, screen and/or modes:

    “A light and diplomatic bird
    Is lenient in my window tree.
    A quick dilemma of the leaves
    Discloses twist and tact to me.”
    —Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    “The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “We like the chase better than the quarry.... And those who philosophize on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention from these, does screen us.”
    —Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

    “Heaven is large, and affords space for all modes of love and fortitude. Why should we be busybodies and superserviceable?”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)