Software Sam presents Linux software tools, API libraries, well-documented source code, copius examples,
online docs, student exercises, bad poetry and fun for geeks of all ages and skill levels.
All code posted on this site is designed for GNU/Linux systems.
GNU/Linux does not just jump out of the box and run; it requires patience, curiosity and
determination. Please help the GNU/Linux community move toward an out-of-the-box solution for
students, grandmas, Liberal Arts majors and the rest of the vast non-technical world who just need
to get useful work done.
If you are developing for that
other operating system, shame on you! Unless you have accidentally
wandered into this site while looking for porn, you are a software designer, and as such you have
super-powers (able to leap tall buildings and so on). Software Sam encourages you to use those
powers for Good rather than Evil.
NcDialog Application Programming Interface
NcDialog is a full-featured application development library for console-based applications.
Go to the Downloads page to download the API source and documentation,
or Click here to take the tour.
AnsiCmd Library Updated
(updated, 2026-04-06 – v:0.0.07)
The AnsiCmd Library of ANSI escape sequences and other tools has grown considerably over the winter months, and the author is
happy to share results with the community. The AnsiCmd library includes not only management for the full array of ANSI escape
sequences, but also a console configuration module, temporary file management engine, Wayland system clipboard interface and
conversion of keycodes which arrive as escape sequences to codepoint values, as well as window-oriented and dialog-oriented
C++ class constructs for design of windowed console applications.
While the included text editor demo app is not quite ready for prime-time,
the beta-testers have reported that the AnsiCmd library itself is now stable. Enjoy!
Software Sam is happy to correct any factual errors, distortions and omissions on this site; however,
Sam's opinions are based on his massive ego, and are therefore rather difficult to modify.
Technical Note: The static data of this website is constructed using HTML5 and CSS3.
All pages have been tested with Firefox 151.0, and Brave(tm) 1.91.175 (Chromium(tm) 149.0.7827.155).
Rendering in MS-Edge(tm) is adequate, but no one who cares about security would use Edge (or IE) anyway.
Note that the selection of the browser's default monospaced font may affect the rendering of screenshots
within the documentation. (Sam recommends DejaVu Sans Mono.)