cmd.exe on WIndows - problem with displaying some Unicode characters

[Wiktor]

  Hi,
first, thank you all for responses. I decided to just use single line frame
around menu. Yes, those double+single line corners work fine in ConEmu, but
I don't want this Python script to be dependent on external program. Maybe
one day it will be worth of showing to others, and it's silly to tell them
'It is pure console based game/framework but works only in ConEmu'...


  Now, to Terry's post:

On 8/3/2014 6:52 PM, Wiktor wrote:

>> as OO programming exercise, I'm trying to port to Python one of my favorite
>> game from early'90 (Atari 65XL/XE) - Kolony (here's video from original
>> version on C64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFycYOp2cbE, and here's
> 
> This appears to be an actual text screen, no graphics.
> 
>> video from modern rewritten (for Atari emulators) version: Kolony 2106
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX20Qqqm5eg - you get the idea? ;-)).
> 
> This appears to be text boxes on a graphics screen.
> 
>> OO Design is one thing, but I want to make it look as near as possible to
>> the original (those windows-like menus in console window).
> 
> Which original? the C64 or Atari.  The important characteristic of both 
> is that both have multiple overlapping popup boxes. This means that 
> either you or a widget framework much keep track of stacking order and 
> how to restore what was hidden when a box goes away or is moved down in 
> the stacking order. I would not be surprised if the Atari had at least a 
> rudimentary widget framework.

  Yes, I'm aware that first link is to the text based game, and second to
graphic based game. I provided both links, because I couldn't find screen
cast from original Atari game (which is also text based, but IMO looks
better than C64's version), and this modern game is translated to English,
so is better for you to understand character of game.
  Yes, I'd like to make text game, that looks like window-based, with popup
boxes, inactive windows grayed out and all this stuff. And all this running
on standard console window (cmd.exe).

  I'm not starting from scratch. I'm using packages 'termcolor', 'colorama'
and 'colorconsole' - they provide functions to print text at desired
position on screen, and change color of foreground/background of this text.
With those packages I already developed some classes that allow me to
construct some simple menus for my console programs. Short demo of silly
program calculating degree of n-th root:
  http://youtu.be/V8ilLhHAT_k
  (I link to the video, because there's too much code lines to paste them
here. Also it's dependent upon those third party packages, and still
work-in-progress).

  So, I'm not worry about randomly access, colors, overprinting existing
characters. At this point I know how to do that. 
  I'm taking next step, so I tried to draw nice frame around menu (that's
why I posted yesterday).
  Next step would be to manage those widgets to draw one over another, to
keep track which one window opens which, and when the other window must be
closed and when only grayed out. At this point I still don't know how to do
this right, but I'm thinking about this very hard. :-) Probably one day
I'll ask it here, if I don't figure it out. :-)

Wiktor

-- 
Best regards,     Wiktor Matuszewski
'py{}@wu{}em.pl'.format('wkm', 'ka')