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Table of Contents
Mouse-Enable your Synchronet BBS
The Synchronet Terminal Server (v3.18a and later) supports XTerm-compatible and SyncTERM-compatible mouse reporting:
- Protocol: X10 compatibility mode (
ESC[?9h) - Encoding: SGR extended coordinates (
ESC[?1006h)
Some modules (e.g. Deuce's Lightbar command shell, Synchronet Minesweeper) may manually enable and capture mouse events. However, for the most part, mouse-enablement is achieved by utilizing special codes/sequences to define mouse “hot-spots” in display strings and files.
Hot-spots
Hot-spots are rectangular areas (regions) of the terminal screen that when clicked with the left-mouse button will cause the terminal server to inject one or more characters into the keyboard input buffer. Typically, the text displayed in a hot-spot (e.g. an ASCII character representing a command key for a menu) will be the same text that is sent in response to a click of the hot-spot, but that does not always have to be the case. Hot-spot regions can be defined that occupy multiple screen columns but a single hot-spot region cannot occupy more than one screen row.
There are 2 types of hot-spots:
- Hungry hot-spots
- Strict hot-spots
Hungy and Strict hot-spots can be combined on the same terminal screen and even the same screen row.
Hot-spot regions may overlap. The most recently defined hot-spots (e.g. further to the right on a row or further down in a file) have priority over earlier defined hot-spots.
Hungry Hot-spots
Hungry hot-spots are hot-spots that can be triggered when clicking outside of the defined hot-spot dimensions. Hungry hot-spots enable the BBS user to click on a word or even a line rather than a single character to invoke a desired action. Hungry hot-spots are the default and preferred hot-spot type.
Strict Hot-spots
Strict hot-spots are hot-spots that will only be trigger when a BBS user clicks their mouse within the strictly-defined dimensions of the hot-spot.
Create
There are 4 ways to create mouse hot-spots:
Mnemonics
Mnemonics are strings (e.g. from the text.dat file) that may contain special characters to denote command-keys:
~precedes a command-key and creates a hungry hot-spot (if preceding a control character or end of line, the command key is a CR)`precedes a command-key and creates a strict hot-spot that consists of the single command-key
Mnemonic strings are mainly interpreted and displayed by the SBBS C/C++ methods but may also be displayed with the JavaScript console.mnemonics() method or the Baja MNEMONICS function.
Attribute Codes
So-called Ctrl-A Codes can be used to create single-character hot-spots in virtually all text strings and files:
^A~precedes a command-key and creates a hungry hot-spot (if preceding a control character or end of line, the command key is a CR)^A`precedes a command-key and creates a strict hot-spot that consists of the single command-key
Message Variables
Message variables can be a convenient way to create hot-spots in display files (e.g. menu files), especially when using ANSI editors.
@HOT@defines the implicit attribute (current color) that is used to identify mouse hot-spots@HOT:attr@define the explicit attribute (using attribute mnemonics) to identify mouse hot-spots@HOT:HUNGRY@subsequently created hot-spots will be “hungry hot-spots” (the default)@HOT:STRICT@subsequently created hot-spots will be “strict hot-spots”@HOT:OFF@disable hot-spot by attribute definitions@~text@create a hungry hot-spot@~text~cmd@create a hungry hot-spot with an alternate command string (may use C-style character literal escaping)@`text@create a strict hot-spot *@`text`cmd@create a strict hot-spot with an alternate command string (may use C-style character literal escaping)
JavaScript
Destroy
There are 2 ways to destroy mouse hot-spots:
- Message Variable:
@CLEAR_HOT@ - JavaScript method:
console.clear_hotspots()
Any clear-screen operation will also clear any/all mouse hot-spots.
