INPUT HANDLING

Written by Deathblade, 4-Sep-94.


[ note: I'm still working on this, but this should serve as a
  quick description of input handling until I can get this completed. ]

GUElib uses an input system that is quite a bit different from most
other mudlibs.  There are two main changes: the parser and the modal
input system.  The input system is discussed here, see /doc/std/parser
for more information on the GUElib parser.

The objective of the input system is to deal with nested input modes.
A classic example is performing a "more" from within another.  On
many muds, this will fail due to the non-reentrant usage of input_to()
and non-reentrancy in whatever is performing the "more" functionality
(it is quite common to have the player object perform this function
and it is usually done with non-reentrant code).

The new input system centers around three functions on the player
object:

  void modal_push(string func, int secure)
  void modal_pop()
  void modal_func(string func, int secure)

The first function sets up the calling object as a modal input
handler.  All input will then be passed to the given function until
a modal_pop() is sent.  The function receiving the input may be changed
with the modal_func() function.  Both modal_push() and modal_func()
take a second parameter indicating whether the input should be
hidden (as in a password).

### need more here.  discuss MORE_OB and EDIT_OB as helpful pieces
### of code.

### Beek: This *really* needs a few examples of how to do simple
things so we don't have to pile through tons of docs just to
do the equivalent of input_to :)

-Beek