Locate
Locate (Statement)
Format
locate column, row
locate ( column, row )
Description
Moves the text cursor in the text output window, so that the next Print puts its characters where you say rather than at the end of what is already there.
Columns and rows are counted from zero, the same way round and the same way up as the graphics window: locate 0, 0 is the top left corner, the first number is across and the second is down.
What is printed after a locate replaces the characters it lands on instead of pushing them along. That is what lets a program rewrite one spot over and over -- a score, a clock, a counter -- without having to redraw everything around it:
for n = 1 to 10
locate 10, 5
print "tick " + n + " ";
pause 0.2
next n
Rows and columns that do not exist yet are filled in with blanks, so locate always lands where it was asked to even on an empty window. In a window fixed by TextScreen there is nothing to fill in and nothing to grow into, so a column or row outside the screen is moved to the nearest one that is on it.
Print on its own is unaffected. With the cursor at the end of the text, which is where Print leaves it, there is nothing to replace and nothing to notice.
TextCol and TextRow read the position back.
In the ordinary text window a column is one character and not a fixed distance across the window, so a box drawn with locate, or columns of figures lined up with it, only come out straight in a fixed-width font -- TextFont "Courier New", say. Use TextScreen if you want a column to be a column whatever the font is.
Example
textfont "Courier New", 12
cls
# a box drawn by moving the cursor, not by padding out strings
locate 4, 2
print "+--------------+";
for r = 3 to 6
locate 4, r
print "| |";
next r
locate 4, 7
print "+--------------+";
locate 6, 4
print "hello there";
locate 0, 9
print "the box was drawn by position alone"
See Also
Cls, Print, TextBackground, TextChar, TextCol, TextColor, TextFont, TextRow, TextScreen
History
| 2.3 | New To Version |