detection of mouse hovering using pdcurses

Question

I am making an implemintation of conway's game of life using c and wanted to make the game highlight the cell the mouse in hovering over but i can't seem to be able to catch mouse movements even though i used ALL_MOUSE_EVENTS and MOUSE_MOVED flags

here is the input handling code :

void handle_mouse_input(){
    MEVENT event;

    if(nc_getmouse(&event) != OK) return ;
    
    if(event.x >= Play_Start_X && event.x <= Play_End_X && event.y == Play_Y){

        Pause = !Pause;

    }else if(event.x >= Exit_Start_X && event.x <= Exit_End_X && event.y == Exit_Y){
        quit();
    }else if(event.x >= State_Start_X && event.y >= State_Start_Y && event.x <= State_End_X && event.y <= State_End_Y){
        lock_state();

        cell_state new_state = alive;
        unsigned x = ((event.x - State_Start_X) / 2) + X_Indent , y = event.y - State_Start_Y + Y_Indent;
        if(lookup_cell_state(Board , x , y , false) == alive){
            new_state = dead;
        }

        set_cell(Board , x , y , new_state);

        unlock_state();
    }else if(event.x >= Reset_Start_X && event.x <= Reset_End_X && event.y == Reset_Y){
        reset_board(Board);
    }
}

//the purpose of making the function of this type is to be used with pthreads
void *handle_input(void *arg){
    if(stdscr == NULL) pthread_exit(NULL);

    keypad(stdscr , true);
    mousemask(ALL_MOUSE_EVENTS | REPORT_MOUSE_POSITION , NULL);
    mouseinterval(0);
    noecho();
    int ch = 0;

    while(1){
        pthread_mutex_lock(&IO_Mutex);

        ch = getch();

        pthread_mutex_unlock(&IO_Mutex);

        if(ch == ERR){
            continue;
        }

        if(ch == KEY_MOUSE){
            handle_mouse_input();
        }else{
            handle_keyboard_input(ch);
        }

        flushinp();
    };

    return NULL;
}

I am running this on windows terminal

note : i am testing if i catch the mouse movement using a debugger thats why i didn't write an if statement to check for bstate yet

Answer 1

i found a solution(kind of)

here is the new code:

void handle_mouse_input(int ch){
    MEVENT event;
    static int Last_X = -1 , Last_Y = -1;

    if(getmouse(&event) != OK) return ;

    if(event.x != Last_X || event.y != Last_Y){
        unhighlight_exit_button();
        unhighlight_play_pause_button();
        unhighlight_reset_button();
        unhighlight_cells();

        if(event.x >= Play_Start_X && event.x <= Play_End_X && event.y == Play_Y){
            highlight_play_pause_button();
        }else if(event.x >= Exit_Start_X && event.x <= Exit_End_X && event.y == Exit_Y){
            highlight_exit_button();
        }else if(event.x >= State_Start_X && event.y >= State_Start_Y && event.x <= State_End_X && event.y <= State_End_Y ){
            unsigned x = (event.x - State_Start_X) / 2 , y = event.y - State_Start_Y;
            highlight_cell(x , y);

            render_state(Board , stdscr , State_Start_X , State_Start_Y , State_End_X , State_End_Y);
            refresh();
        }else if(event.x >= Reset_Start_X && event.x <= Reset_End_X && event.y == Reset_Y){
            highlight_reset_button();
        }
    }

    Last_X = event.x;
    Last_Y = event.y;

    if(ch != KEY_MOUSE) return ;

    if(event.x >= Play_Start_X && event.x <= Play_End_X && event.y == Play_Y){
        Pause = !Pause;
    }else if(event.x >= Exit_Start_X && event.x <= Exit_End_X && event.y == Exit_Y){
        quit();
    }else if(event.x >= State_Start_X && event.y >= State_Start_Y && event.x <= State_End_X && event.y <= State_End_Y ){
        lock_state();
        cell_state new_state = alive;
        unsigned x = ((event.x - State_Start_X) / 2) + X_Indent , y = event.y - State_Start_Y + Y_Indent;
        if(lookup_cell_state(Board , x , y , false) == alive){
            new_state = dead;
        }
        set_cell(Board , x , y , new_state);
        unlock_state();

        render_state(Board , stdscr , State_Start_X , State_Start_Y , State_End_X , State_End_Y);
        refresh();
    }else if(event.x >= Reset_Start_X && event.x <= Reset_End_X && event.y == Reset_Y){
        reset_board(Board);
    }
}

//the purpose of making the function of this type is to be used with pthreads
void *handle_input(void *arg){
    if(stdscr == NULL) return NULL;

    int ch = 0;

    ch = getch();

    handle_mouse_input(ch);
    
    if(ch == ERR){
        return NULL;
    }

    if(ch != KEY_MOUSE){
        handle_keyboard_input(ch);
    }

    flushinp();

    return NULL;
}

even though the windows terminal won't report movement , the position of the mouse is always updated even if no new event happens , so i handle the mouse input even if a mouse event didn't happen get the mouse event check its position to know which cell or button it is hovering over then check if a mouse event has happened

you can also implement a function that detects mouse movement by getting the new mouse position then comparing it to older the position

eg:

bool mouse_moved(int *new_x , int *new_y){
    static int x = -1 , y = -1;
    
    if(new_x == NULL || new_y == NULL) return false;

    MEVENT event;
    nc_getmouse(&event);

    *new_x = -1;
    *new_y = -1;
    if(event.x != x || event.y != y){
        *new_x = x = event.x;
        *new_y = y = event.y;

        return true;
    }

    return false
}

EDIT : turns out this only works with pdcurses