ONLY do IO output when we are running it from a console/terminal

src/Main.cpp

@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 #include <Windows.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include "argh.h"
+#include "guicon.h"
 
 using namespace std;
 using namespace Render;
@@ -150,6 +151,8 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
         return EXIT_FAILURE;
     }
 
+    RedirectIOToConsole();
+
     parser pa(argc, argv);
     if (pa[{"-v", "--verbose"}])
         log("", "Verbose mode enabled.", NORMAL, __FILENAME__, __LINE__);

src/Render.cpp

@@ -204,8 +204,6 @@ void Render::Object::centerSelf(AXIS axis) {
 }
 
 bool Render::Init(string window_name) {
-    consoleD = GetConsoleWindow();
-    SetWindowTextA(consoleD, "Logging window");
     std::ofstream logFile;
     logFile.open("log.txt", std::ofstream::out | std::ofstream::trunc);
     logFile.close();
@@ -300,8 +298,6 @@ bool Render::Update() {
             }
         }
 
-        SetWindowTextA(consoleD, "Logging window");
-
         int start = SDL_GetPerformanceCounter();
 
         int current = SDL_GetTicks();
@@ -357,6 +353,7 @@ bool Render::Update() {
     music.deinit();
     TTF_Quit();
     SDL_Quit();
+    ReleaseConsole();
 
     return false;
 }

src/Render.hpp

@@ -28,6 +28,8 @@
 #include "toml.hpp"
 #include <fstream>
 
+#include "guicon.h"
+
 #ifdef _WIN32 || WIN32
 #define __FILENAME__ (strrchr(__FILE__, '\\') ? strrchr(__FILE__, '\\') + 1 : __FILE__)
 #else

src/guicon.h

@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+#ifndef __GUICON_H__
+#define __GUICON_H__
+
+#include <windows.h>
+#include <stdio.h>
+#include <fcntl.h>
+#include <io.h>
+#include <iostream>
+#include <fstream>
+#include <stdint.h>
+
+using namespace std;
+
+static const WORD MAX_CONSOLE_LINES = 500;
+
+// Redirect IO calls (stdout, stderr, and others) to the console output (if available)
+inline void RedirectIOToConsole() {
+    // make sure we actually HAVE a console to gawk at
+    if (AttachConsole(ATTACH_PARENT_PROCESS))
+    {
+        // Redirect CRT standard input, output and error handles to the console window.
+        FILE * pNewStdout = nullptr;
+        FILE * pNewStderr = nullptr;
+        FILE * pNewStdin = nullptr;
+
+        ::freopen_s(&pNewStdout, "CONOUT$", "w", stdout);
+        ::freopen_s(&pNewStderr, "CONOUT$", "w", stderr);
+        ::freopen_s(&pNewStdin, "CONIN$", "r", stdin);
+
+        // Clear the error state for all of the C++ standard streams. Attempting to accessing the streams before they refer
+        // to a valid target causes the stream to enter an error state. Clearing the error state will fix this problem,
+        // which seems to occur in newer version of Visual Studio even when the console has not been read from or written
+        // to yet.
+        std::cout.clear();
+        std::cerr.clear();
+        std::cin.clear();
+
+        std::wcout.clear();
+        std::wcerr.clear();
+        std::wcin.clear();
+
+        COORD topLeft  = { 0, 0 };
+        HANDLE console = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
+        CONSOLE_SCREEN_BUFFER_INFO screen;
+        DWORD written;
+
+        GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(console, &screen);
+        FillConsoleOutputCharacterA(
+            console, ' ', screen.dwSize.X * screen.dwSize.Y, topLeft, &written
+        );
+        FillConsoleOutputAttribute(
+            console, FOREGROUND_GREEN | FOREGROUND_RED | FOREGROUND_BLUE,
+            screen.dwSize.X * screen.dwSize.Y, topLeft, &written
+        );
+        SetConsoleCursorPosition(console, topLeft);
+    }
+}
+
+inline bool ReleaseConsole()
+{
+    bool result = true;
+    FILE* fp;
+
+    // Just to be safe, redirect standard IO to NUL before releasing.
+
+    cout << "END OF OUTPUT, PRESS ENTER" << endl;
+    std::cout.flush();
+
+    // Redirect STDIN to NUL
+    if (freopen_s(&fp, "NUL:", "r", stdin) != 0)
+        result = false;
+    else
+        setvbuf(stdin, NULL, _IONBF, 0);
+
+    // Redirect STDOUT to NUL
+    if (freopen_s(&fp, "NUL:", "w", stdout) != 0)
+        result = false;
+    else
+        setvbuf(stdout, NULL, _IONBF, 0);
+
+    // Redirect STDERR to NUL
+    if (freopen_s(&fp, "NUL:", "w", stderr) != 0)
+        result = false;
+    else
+        setvbuf(stderr, NULL, _IONBF, 0);
+
+    // Detach from console
+    if (!FreeConsole())
+        result = false;
+
+    return result;
+}
+
+#endif