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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Ctrl-Z fails to suspend Windows programs
References: <87ekogc0uq DOT fsf AT eu DOT citrix DOT com><Pine DOT LNX DOT 4 DOT 58 DOT 0406171259170 DOT 30937 AT ming DOT fruitbat DOT org><h4o4z9lf4esc$.dlg AT thorstenkampe DOT de>
From: John Cooper <John DOT Cooper AT eu DOT citrix DOT com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 10:30:17 +0100
In-Reply-To: <h4o4z9lf4esc$.dlg@thorstenkampe.de> (Thorsten Kampe's messageof "Thu, 17 Jun 2004 23:31:10 +0200")
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Thorsten Kampe <thorsten AT thorstenkampe DOT de> writes:

 > Why should Cygwin zsh have such a feature and make a difference
 > between a GUI and a non GUI application?

Two reasons:
1) Most native Windows apps don't read from or write to the invoking shell window
   - it doesn't add much value to run them in the "foreground".

2) Once started (in the foreground) it's not possible to suspend such a
   program.

 > When you invoke a non GUI application, you won't return to the prompt unless
 > the application has finished. Same with zsh under Linux. If you start a GUI
 > without a "&" you don't get a prompt.

Yes, but the key difference is that on Linux you can always get back to the
shell window by suspending the GUI app with ^Z (or whatever is your susp char).

 > And you still can [Ctrl]+[C] the GUI app which you couldn't when it was run
 > in the background.

The problem is that I often don't want to have to terminate the GUI app just to
get my shell prompt back.

    --- John


 > * Peter A. Castro (2004-06-17 22:13 +0100)
 > > On Tue, 15 Jun 2004, John Cooper wrote:
 > >>  > The point is that it's not about cygwin-vs-windoze apps.  It's about
 > >>  > apps-that-use-console-stdin-and-stdout vs. apps-that-display-a-gui; those
 > >>  > that show a gui could usefully be detached, but those that read their input
 > >>  > from stdin will break if the shell detaches them.
 > > 
 > > Hi John,
 > >   I'm the maintainer for zsh on Cygwin.
 > > 
 > >> Yes, you're right, the old "native" zsh option was specifically to do with GUI
 > >> apps rather than "Windows" apps per se - here's the doc to for enabling the
 > >> option (it was off by default):
 > >>
 > >>   winntwaitforguiapps: When set, makes the shell wait for win32 GUI apps to
 > >>   terminate instead of spawning them asynchronously.
 > >>
 > >>  > I don't think there's a reliable enough mechanism by which a shell could
 > >>  > detect one case from the other.
 > >>
 > >> Below is the code it used to determine if a program is a GUI program or not. I
 > >> don't know how well it works under all conditions; however it did work fine for
 > >> me.
 > >>
 > >> Even if not perfectly reliable, could something like this be added but disabled
 > >> by default?  I for one would find it useful.
 > > 
 > > I guess I don't really have much of a problem with adding such a feature,
 > > provided it's something that many users really want.  I can see some
 > > merit to it, but is it really that much work to type '&' after the
 > > command to run it in the background?
 > 
 > 
 > Thorsten


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