This is a cool feature, and probably faster than approximating it with a partial-screen terminalio.Terminal(which also probably needs some gyrations to get print() statements to be natural).

Thanks for the constructive comments.

• being able to access the current Group would be more general. Yet if you’re somewhere already deep in your display code, it would require you to do a display.show(None) to access a handle to the splash group. Probably not a huge deal and you could turn off auto_refresh so it would be hidden to the user. Let me know your decision and I’ll make edits.
• I assume that when code.py stops that it essentially does a display.show(None). I’ll hunt for where the display.show(None) happens and that can reset the display to its original position and size.
• I’m with @anecdata on this one. A user can build their own terminal, but if the REPL is already there, that makes it a lot simpler to use.
• One other idea I toyed with is whether resizing the REPL should also forward over any text data from the previous incarnation of the Terminal tilegrid. Currently the tilegrid is obliterated and a fresh one is created. However that would require allocating the new tilegrid memory, copying the tilegrid data that will fit and then deallocating the previous tilegrid. Is it worth this effort/code space to keep the REPL text even when the size changes?

I totally messed up my commits. I’ll see if I can enlist help on discord to get the revision sorted out.

Ok, this is ready for another review:

• Created an accessor for a displays root_group.
• Resets the REPL size and position when display.show(None) is called.

Some of the builds are failing. I'm unsure how to resolve this.

This is awesome! I have not tried it out on a device yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Looking over the code and example presented above my only question ATM is around naming.

Is the "splash" term previously used somewhere for this concept (or something similar)?

I have seen it used as the name for a Group object in some example code scripts. But I've always thought that when originally written the object may have been named that way because it was used for a "splash screen" which mobile apps and other games often have. (Shows the Logo or some other artwork for a few seconds while more things are being loaded).

Maybe there is some context for the term that I am missing though. I have seen it used in cases even when the object doesn't represent a "splash screen" type element.

If "Splash" has a specific meaning that relates to this concept then I think it's okay to use it. But if it was chosen here because there are many examples that use it for their Group variable, I might lean toward trying to come up with something more descriptive or specific to our usage here.

Thanks @FoamyGuy for the good feedback. Per @tannewt comments above I modified the functionality and naming. To clarify, here is the current status of what is added and the names.

• display.root_group: the root displayio Group that is currently displayed. To access the “splash” screen group (with Blinka and the REPL terminal output) you first have to do display.show(None) and then procure the display.root_group. If you don’t want that to disturb the display you can turn auto_refresh to false.
• supervisor.reset_terminal(x_pixels, y_pixels): function to resize the REPL terminal.
• finally, I added some code to reset the REPL to its default position and size whenever display.show(None) is called. This ensures that the REPL returns to its expected form whenever code.py ends.

• One other idea I toyed with is whether resizing the REPL should also forward over any text data from the previous incarnation of the Terminal tilegrid. Currently the tilegrid is obliterated and a fresh one is created. However that would require allocating the new tilegrid memory, copying the tilegrid data that will fit and then deallocating the previous tilegrid. Is it worth this effort/code space to keep the REPL text even when the size changes?

I think this would be way more work than it's worth. The moment you change the width, you'd then need to rewrap all of the text. Nevermind the VT100 commands that can actually navigate the grid and modify it. Obliterate is my preference.

@FoamyGuy this pyportal issue was resolved by
#5951

I pulled the repo before that PR was merged so it’s not incorporated in this repo. Do I need to merge in those changes?

@kmatch98 ah I see! I don't think you need to merge it to here(I believe github works out the differences correctly in most cases), but I am not certain. I'll try it again tomorrow and merge that PR into my local repo to build.

Fixed an erroneous documentation string. Local docs build ok now. This is ready for another review.

This failed for one board, uses 52 bytes too many. Not sure how to resolve this one. Suggestions welcome.

@dhalbert did you reduce the datum_imu board size already?

@dhalbert did you reduce the datum_imu board size already?

Yes, fixed by 0d43e3e in #5969.

Here's the latest demo code for moving the REPL position and adding some displayio objects:

import board
import displayio
import supervisor
import time


display=board.DISPLAY

# Create a bitmap with two colors
bitmap1 = displayio.Bitmap(display.width//4, display.height//4 - 10, 2)

# Create a two color palette
palette1 = displayio.Palette(2)
palette1[0] = 0xff00ff
palette1[1] = 0xffffff

# Create a TileGrid using the Bitmap and Palette
tile_grid1 = displayio.TileGrid(bitmap1, pixel_shader=palette1)


# Create a bitmap with two colors
bitmap2 = displayio.Bitmap(display.width//4, display.height//4 - 10, 2)

# Create a two color palette
palette2 = displayio.Palette(2)
palette2[0] = 0x00ffff
palette2[1] = 0xffffff

# Create a TileGrid using the Bitmap and Palette
tile_grid2 = displayio.TileGrid(bitmap2, pixel_shader=palette2)
tile_grid2.x=display.width//4

# Create a bitmap with two colors
bitmap3 = displayio.Bitmap(display.width//4, display.height//4 - 10, 2)

# Create a two color palette
palette3 = displayio.Palette(2)
palette3[0] = 0xffff00
palette3[1] = 0xffffff

# Create a TileGrid using the Bitmap and Palette
tile_grid3 = displayio.TileGrid(bitmap3, pixel_shader=palette3)
tile_grid3.x=2*display.width//4

# Create a Group
mygroup = displayio.Group()

print()
print()
print()
print("REPL control test: Taking control of REPL group")
time.sleep(3)


# clear the display to the REPL 
display.show(None)
splash = board.DISPLAY.root_group # this gets the current root_group, the REPL

# Note: You must "display.show" your own group before adding the splash to your own group.
# Reason: When displaying the normal REPL (for example with display.show(None), the splash
# group is already in a group that is displayed.  To remove the splash from the displayed group,
# you first have to display.show some other group, doing that will remove the splash from its group
# and allow you to append it to your own group.	
display.show(mygroup)

# resize the supervisor.splash group pixel dimensions, make it half the display height.
supervisor.reset_terminal(display.width, display.height//2)

# relocate the supervisor.splash group on the display, moving it half-way down the display
splash.y=display.height//2
print("Resize and move the splash screen")

# append the supervisor.splash group to the displayed group.
mygroup.append(splash)
time.sleep(2)

# demonstrate how print statements scroll on the REPL/console display
print("Add some prints to show terminal scrolling:")
time.sleep(0.3)
for i in range(6):
	print("Line: {}".format(i))
	time.sleep(0.3)
time.sleep(1.5)

# Add bitmap rectangles to the display group
print("Add some displayio bitmap rectangles:")
time.sleep(1)

# Add the TileGrid to the Group
print("Add a pink rect.")
mygroup.append(tile_grid1)
time.sleep(1)
print("Add a cyan rect.")
mygroup.append(tile_grid2)
time.sleep(1)
print("Add a yellow rect.")
mygroup.append(tile_grid3)
time.sleep(1)

# print some more lines to show the console text scrolling, with 
# the bitmaps shown on the upper half of the display
for i in range(6):
	print("Another line feed: {}!".format(i))
	time.sleep(0.3)
time.sleep(3)
print("Ending the code")
time.sleep(1)

splash.y=display.height//2

On CP 9.0.1 this line results in RuntimeError: Read-only. Is there any other way of shifting the terminal on display now?

@matemaciek Please file a new PR about this message. This most likely is an undesired side-effect of #8923 that should be fixed.