This project contains a small C++ stream buffer class to write directly to a Windows console. Along with the normal stream capabilities, it supports clearing the screen by writing cls() to the stream, writing to a particular screen position by writing gotoxy(x, y) to the stream, and setting the foreground/background color by writing color names to the stream. Names supported are:

• red
• green
• blue
• intense
• red_back
• green_back
• blue_back
• intenst_back

These can be bit-wise ORed together, so you can get medium grey on a blue background with code on this general order:

auto color = red | green | blue | blue_back;

WinStream ws;

ws << color << "this is some text\n";

Since | has lower precedence than <<, if you want to generate a color "inline", you need to enclose any ORed values in parentheses:

ws << (red | green | blue | blue_back ) << "Some text\n";

Open a Visual Studio command prompt, and execute the following commands

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "NMake Makefiles"
NMake

Open the MinGW command prompt (the Microsoft one, not a bash shell), and execute the following commands (filling in the path to your installatio of MinGW where indicated):

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM="<path to mingw>\make"
make

That should build a WinBuf library (WinBuf.lib or WinBuf.a, as applicable) and a TestStatic.exe, which should run a small test, clearing the screen to grey text on a blue background, and writing a little bit of text in a couple different colors.

The file test_Winbuf.cpp contains a quick demonstration of how to use the code. It's what builds to the testStatic.exe