🎨 Palette: Improve score readability and terminal UX

.Jules/palette.md

@@ -30,6 +30,6 @@
 **Learning:** In terminal-based games, displaying achievement progress (like a live high score) in real-time provides immediate tactile reward and engagement. Furthermore, inclusive UX means ensuring first-time players also receive "New Best" feedback, even when their initial record is zero.
 **Action:** Update session-high-score variables immediately upon record-breaking and display them in the live HUD. Ensure achievement conditions (`score > highscore`) don't exclude the first-time user experience.
 
-## 2024-04-24 - Avoiding Trailing Artifacts in CLI Applications
-**Learning:** When dynamically updating terminal lines using carriage return (`\r`), relying on hardcoded padding spaces to overwrite old text is brittle and leads to trailing text artifacts when new lines are shorter than previous ones.
-**Action:** Always use the ANSI escape sequence `\033[K` (Erase in Line) immediately after the carriage return (`\r`) to cleanly clear the line before writing new content, rather than manually managing padding spaces.
+## 2026-05-02 - Thousands Separators for Numeric Readability
+**Learning:** In applications where numeric values (like scores) can grow large, readability suffers without thousands separators. Adding a simple comma-formatting helper improves the user's ability to quickly parse large numbers at a glance.
+**Action:** Use a thousands-separator formatter for all significant numeric displays in CLI and GUI applications to enhance readability as values escalate.

src/main.cpp

@@ -20,11 +20,24 @@
 #define CLR_HARD  "\033[1;31m"
 #define CLR_NORM  "\033[1;32m"
 #define CLR_CTRL  "\033[1;33m"
+#define CLR_EOL   "\033[K"
 #define CLR_RESET "\033[0m"
 #define ERASE_LINE "\033[K"
 
 struct termios oldt;
 
+std::string formatWithCommas(long long value) {
+    std::string s = std::to_string(value);
+    int n = s.length();
+    int insertPosition = n - 3;
+    int limit = (value < 0) ? 1 : 0;
+    while (insertPosition > limit) {
+        s.insert(insertPosition, ",");
+        insertPosition -= 3;
+    }
+    return s;
+}
+
 void restore_terminal(int signum) {
     tcsetattr(STDIN_FILENO, TCSANOW, &oldt);
     // Use write() and _exit() because they are async-signal-safe
@@ -78,7 +91,7 @@ int main() {
     std::cout << CLR_CTRL << "==========================\n      SPEED CLICKER\n==========================\n" << CLR_RESET;
 
     if (highscore > 0) {
-        std::cout << " Personal Best: " << CLR_SCORE << highscore << CLR_RESET << "\n\n";
+        std::cout << " Personal Best: " << CLR_SCORE << formatWithCommas(highscore) << CLR_RESET << "\n\n";
     }
 
     std::cout << "Controls:\n " << CLR_CTRL << "[h]" << CLR_RESET << " Toggle Hard Mode (10x Speed!)\n "
@@ -95,7 +108,7 @@ int main() {
     }
 
     for (int i = 3; i > 0; --i) {
-        std::cout << "\r" ERASE_LINE "Starting in " << CLR_CTRL << i << CLR_RESET << "... " << std::flush;
+        std::cout << "\rStarting in " << CLR_CTRL << i << CLR_RESET << "... " << CLR_EOL << std::flush;
         auto start_wait = std::chrono::steady_clock::now();
         while (std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::milliseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start_wait).count() < 1000) {
             int elapsed = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::milliseconds>(std::chrono::steady_clock::now() - start_wait).count();
@@ -109,7 +122,7 @@ int main() {
             }
         }
     }
-    std::cout << "\r" ERASE_LINE << CLR_NORM << "GO!" << CLR_RESET << "\n" << std::flush;
+    std::cout << "\r" << CLR_NORM << "GO!             " << CLR_RESET << CLR_EOL << "\n" << std::flush;
     std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::milliseconds(200));
     tcflush(STDIN_FILENO, TCIFLUSH);
 
@@ -142,6 +155,11 @@ int main() {
         }
 
         if (updateUI) {
+            std::cout << "\r" << CLR_SCORE << "Score: " << formatWithCommas(score) << CLR_RESET
+                      << " | High: " << CLR_SCORE << formatWithCommas(highscore) << CLR_RESET << " "
+                      << (hardMode ? CLR_HARD "[HARD MODE]" : CLR_NORM "[NORMAL MODE]")
+                      << (score > initialHighscore ? " NEW BEST! 🥳" : "")
+                      << CLR_EOL << std::flush;
             std::cout << "\r" ERASE_LINE << CLR_SCORE << "Score: " << score << CLR_RESET << " | High: " << highscore << " "
                       << (hardMode ? CLR_HARD "[HARD MODE]" : CLR_NORM "[NORMAL MODE]")
                       << (score > initialHighscore ? " NEW BEST! 🥳" : "")
@@ -155,9 +173,9 @@ int main() {
     }
 
     tcsetattr(STDIN_FILENO, TCSANOW, &oldt);
-    std::cout << "\n\n" << CLR_SCORE << "Final Score: " << score << CLR_RESET << "\n";
+    std::cout << "\n\n" << CLR_SCORE << "Final Score: " << formatWithCommas(score) << CLR_RESET << "\n";
     if (score > initialHighscore) {
-        std::cout << "Congratulations! A new personal best!\n";
+        std::cout << "Congratulations! A new personal best! (Previous record: " << formatWithCommas(initialHighscore) << ")\n";
     }
     std::cout << "Thanks for playing!\n";
     std::cout << "\033[?25h" << std::flush;