Print raw data when using the Curses development kit (Cdk) - perl

Question

My perl program needs to jump between ncurses and a raw console as it executes a system call in a loop, like this (simplified for problem emphasis):
init Cdk
present menu
deinit Cdk
run system call
Unfortunately Cdk appears to initialize ncurses at the use Cdk import and not instantiation
(Cdk::init()) and so I don't know how to disable it. This behavior seems completely absurd to me; apart from the loop described above, my program also has a special mode where a database is initialized - this part does not present any kind of menu (only raw console output) yet it would seem that I now have to format all my output with menus - whilst not even using a menu! And again, just to print the program help output now seems to require me to generate a Cdk widget - insane.
Is there a way to easily jump in and out of ncurses when using Cdk or am I screwed?
Some example code:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use Cdk;
eval {popupLabel(["popup before init"]);}; # will fail as init() isn't called
print "Test after use\n"; # won't be printed (which is a problem!)
Cdk::init();
print "Test after init\n"; # won't be printed
popupLabel(["popup after init"]);
Cdk::end();
print "Test after end\n"; # won't be printed

Answer 1

The following (which uses the newer Curses module) seems to do what you want: bits of Curses, and bits of non-Curses intermingled:
use strict;
use warnings;
use Curses;
# Non-Curses
print "Press a key...\n";
<STDIN>;
# Curses
initscr();
addstr(14, 0, "hit a key: ");
refresh();
my $ch = getch();
endwin();
# Non-Curses
print "Hi again, press a key...\n";
<STDIN>;
# Curses again
initscr();
addstr(14, 0, "hit another key: ");
refresh();
my $ch2 = getch();
endwin();
# Non-Curses
print "bye!\n";
At least this module was released this January and not (like Cdk, released 1998) last century...

Answer 2

Well, I got what I wanted, scrapping Cdk for Curses::UI. Thanks mfontani for posting an answer!
Here's my example solution which uses Curses::UI and Curses::UI::Listbox:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use Curses::UI;
use Curses::UI::Listbox;
my $cui = Curses::UI->new(-color_support => 1,
-clear_on_exit => 0);
my $win = $cui->add('window_id', 'Window');
sub user_select {
my ($cui, $obj) = #_;
my $item = $obj->get_active_value();
$cui->leave_curses();
print "You selected $item!\n";
sleep(1);
}
my $listbox = $win->add(
'mylistbox', 'Listbox',
-onchange => sub{ user_select($cui, #_) },
-border => 1,
-values => [1, 2, 3],
-labels => { 1 => 'One',
2 => 'Two',
3 => 'Three' },
);
$listbox->focus();
$cui->mainloop;