Re: [hatari-devel] Hatari debug mode

[Eero Tamminen <oak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On 31.7.2025 8.37, Christian Zietz wrote:
> If started from a console, it will detach from the console it was 
> launched from, and there will be no console output at all. If you run it 
> with "hatari -W", it will always open a *separate* console window, not 
> using the existing one it was launched from.

And it works the same when Hatari is build as Windows GUI app (the 
default) or as CLI app (what you do)?

I guess in general starting applications from console is nowadays really 
rare in Windows, much more so than in Linux [1].  So opening a new 
console window on Windows when needed is not a problem for most people.

However, there's the Hatari use-case of redirecting Hatari trace etc 
output to a file.  Will opening of a new console window interrupt that, 
and completely loose rest of the output when the new window is closed at 
Hatari exit?

---

[1] As to opening console automatically on Linux (or other Unix 
variants), the problem is that Linux has no standard console 
application, or way to open one.

Each desktop has its own console program, and that may even have changed 
between major desktop versions. XTerm is not going to be installed on 
Wayland desktops, and has otherwise crummy usability. And there does not 
seem to be no standard (e.g. XDG) alias for invoking desktop-native console.

=> This functionality is going to be Windows-only.

(If there's some API to do similar on Mac, somebody could contribute 
support for that though.)


	- Eero

PS. Sometime in future, Hatari debugger shortcut could maybe invoke some 
simple SDL debugger GUI (doable now that SDL supports multiple windows) 
instead of the CLI debugger, to avoid it freezing the emulation when 
there's no console.

(User should still be able to default to CLI one, because GUI one is not 
going to have all the features & scriptability the CLI one has, 
especially if it's going to be done in C/SDL.)