# Input text and take text from different places?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/input-text-and-take-text-from-different-places/159339>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 3, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/input-text-and-take-text-from-different-places/159339 "2009-02-03T17:37:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![enchanter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/ce7236/32.png) [@enchanter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/enchanter)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/input-text-and-take-text-from-different-places/159339/1 "2009-02-03T17:37:45Z")

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I haven’t been able to find anything on this, so here goes:

Is it possible to be ‘puts’ing text to one place on the terminal while  
‘gets’in from another?  
I have setup with VT100 control codes a basic layout for my MUD client,  
with a line of dashes (’-’) going across the second from bottom line. I  
tried setting it up so that the thread that handles input from the MUD  
moves the cursor (via control codes) to line 22 (above the ‘split’ line)  
to add in the MUD output, and then move it back down to 24 so that the  
user typing sees their commands being typed down below the split. But  
this isn’t working so well. Is there any way to take text input from one  
place while putting text into another place? Have two cursors in the  
terminal? Just a possibility xD

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![enchanter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/ce7236/32.png) [@enchanter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/enchanter)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/input-text-and-take-text-from-different-places/159339/2 "2009-02-03T19:47:52Z")

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Tim M. wrote:

> Is there any way to take text input from one  
> place while putting text into another place?

Check out Curses.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![enchanter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/ce7236/32.png) [@enchanter](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/enchanter)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/input-text-and-take-text-from-different-places/159339/3 "2009-02-03T21:02:59Z")

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7stud – wrote:

> Tim M. wrote:
> 
> > Is there any way to take text input from one  
> > place while putting text into another place?
> 
> Check out Curses.

I’m trying to stay away from Curses/Ncurses.