+the library and tools.<P>
+
+The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at
+the GNU distribution site
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses</A>.
+<br>It is also available at
+<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
+
+<H1>Release Notes</H1>
+
+This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0; very few
+applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
+These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.0 release.
+<p>
+Interface changes:
+<ul>
+ <li>made the extended terminal capabilities
+ (<code>configure --enable-tcap-names</code>)
+ a standard feature (though the configure script can disable it,
+ it is built by default).
+
+ <li>removed the <code>trace()</code> function and related trace support
+ from the production library. This is the only interface change that
+ may cause problems with existing applications linked to shared
+ libraries, since not all platforms use the minor version number.
+
+ <li>explicitly initialized to zero several data items which were
+ implicitly initialized, e.g., cur_term. If not explicitly
+ initialized, their storage type is C (common), and causes problems
+ linking on some platforms.
+
+ <li>modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict with
+ C++ STL.
+</ul>
+New features:
+<ul>
+ <li>added a new extension, <code>assume_default_colors()</code> to
+ provide better control over the use of default colors. This is
+ the principal visible difference between ncurses 5.1 and preceding
+ versions. The new extension allows an application to specify what
+ colors pair 0 uses.
+ <p>
+ <em>NOTE</em>: Pair 0 defaults to white on black unless
+ you have invoked <code>use_default_colors()</code> or set it via
+ <code>assume_default_colors()</code>. An application that calls
+ <code>start_colors()</code> without setting the background color
+ will consistently have a black background no matter what color your
+ terminal's background actually is.
+
+ <li>made several fixes to the terminfo-to-termcap conversion, and
+ have been using the generated termcaps without further hand-tuning.
+ This builds on the extension <code>use_extended_names()</code> by
+ adding "obsolete" termcap strings to terminfo.src
+ <ul>
+ <li>modified <code>tic</code> so that if extended names (i.e.,
+ configure --enable-tcap-names) are active, then <code>tic -x</code>
+ will also write "obsolete" capabilities that are present in the
+ terminfo source.
+
+ <li>added screen's AX capability (for ECMA SGR 39 and 49) to applicable
+ terminfo entries, use presence of this as a check for a small
+ improvement in setting default colors.
+
+ <li>add -a option to tic and infocmp, which retains commented-out
+ capabilities during source translation/comparison, e.g., captoinfo
+ and infotocap.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>implemented limited support for UTF-8, useful with XFree86 xterm:
+ <ul>
+ <li>if the <code>configure --enable-widec</code> option is
+ given, append 'w' to names of the generated libraries (e.g.,
+ libncursesw.so) to avoid conflict with existing ncurses libraries.
+ <li>add a simple UTF-8 output driver to the experimental
+ wide-character support. If any of the environment variables
+ LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or LANG contain the string "UTF-8", this driver
+ will be used to translate the output to UTF-8.
+ <li>modified view.c to make a rudimentary viewer of UTF-8 text.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>modify <code>raw()</code> and <code>noraw()</code> to clear/restore
+ IEXTEN flag which affects <code>stty lnext</code> on systems such as FreeBSD
+
+ <li>reordered tests during mouse initialization to allow for gpm to run
+ in xterm, or for xterm to be used under OS/2 EMX. Also dropped test
+ for <code>$DISPLAY</code> in favor of the terminfo capability
+ <code>kmous=\E[M</code> or
+ if <code>$TERM</code> environment variable contains "xterm".
+
+ <li>added configure option <code>--with-manpage-symlinks</code>, which
+ provides for fully indexing manpage entries by making symbolic links
+ for the aliases.
+
+ <li>changed <code>unctrl()</code> to render C1 characters (128-159) as
+ <code>~@</code>, <code>~A</code>, etc.
+
+ <li>add experimental configure option --enable-colorfgbg to check for
+ $COLORTERM variable as set by rxvt/aterm/Eterm.
+
+ <li>made the <code>infocmp -F</code> option less verbose.
+
+ <li>dropped support for gnat 3.10 (gnat 3.12 is current).
+
+</ul>
+Major bug fixes:
+<ul>
+ <li>modified infocmp -e, -E options to ensure that generated fallback.c
+ type for Booleans agrees with term.h
+
+ <li>documented a special case of incompatiblity between ncurses 4.2 and
+ 5.0, added a section for this in INSTALL.
+
+ <li>corrected tests for file-descriptors in OS/2 EMX mouse support. A
+ negative value could be used by FD_SET, causing the select() call to
+ wait indefinitely.
+
+ <li>made 'tput flash' work properly for xterm by flushing output in
+ delay_output() when using napms(), and modifying xterm's terminfo to
+ specify no padding character. Otherwise, xterm's reported baud rate
+ could mislead ncurses into producing too few padding characters.
+
+ <li>modified lib_addch.c to allow repeated update to the lower-right
+ corner, rather than displaying only the first character written until
+ the cursor is moved. Recent versions of SVr4 curses can update the
+ lower-right corner, and behave this way.
+
+ <li>modified echo() behavior of getch() to match Solaris curses for
+ carriage return and backspace (reported by Neil Zanella).
+
+ <li>corrected offsets used for subwindows in <code>wresize()</code>
+
+ <li>modified configure script so AC_MSG_ERROR is temporarily defined to
+ a warning in AC_PROG_CXX to make it recover from a missing C++
+ compiler without requiring user to add --without-cxx option
+
+ <li>corrected logic in lib_twait.c as used by lib_mouse.c for GPM mouse
+ support when poll() is used rather than select().
+
+ <li>made several fixes for buffer overflows, unchecked recursion,
+ improvements in performance, etc. See the NEWS file for details.
+</ul>
+
+<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
+
+The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses: