Detecting ANSI compatibility

[monte-monte]

Added check for ANSI escape support. This should resolve possible edge cases.
For windows I am setting console mode to enable ANSI and if it fails, fall back to simple terminal.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/console/getconsolemode
Tested on win11 and win7. Would appreciate if you test it on win10 or 8 also.

[monte-monte]

• Need to find linux terminal that doesn't support ANSI escape chars to test.
• Maybe this should be moved to a function in terminalhelp.h?

[cnlohr]

You know, you can call system("") to put cmd or powershell into ansi mode, right?

[monte-monte]

No, I don't know that. What is that?

[cnlohr]

It's how you get ANSI control codes in cmd and powershell. I don't know why it's not better optimized. Just call that at program start. There are no downsides that I am aware of.

[monte-monte]

weird, I didn't see any mention of it while I was looking for a way to enable ANSI in cmd on windows. Also that won't work on <win10? By using SetConsoleMode you can see if it works or no, and act accordingly.

[cnlohr]

That is true, it is Win10+. But it will work in all situations/combinations (power shell or cmd) on Win10+, so no need to check

[monte-monte]

So, you're ok with making it incompatible with anything lower than win10? What's wrong with the proposed solution, that should cover all edge cases?
Also why does empty system(") call produce this result? Is it documented anywhere, or you've found it experimentally?

[cnlohr]

system("") and I don't know. It was told to me by someone who works at Microsoft.

If you want you could also set with the set console properties! I definitely don't want to deliberately leave out Win7 and lower.