1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 -- Copyright (c) 1998-2010,2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. --
4 -- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a --
5 -- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the --
6 -- "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including --
7 -- without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, --
8 -- distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell copies --
9 -- of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished --
10 -- to do so, subject to the following conditions: --
12 -- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included --
13 -- in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. --
15 -- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS --
16 -- OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF --
17 -- MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN --
18 -- NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, --
19 -- DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR --
20 -- OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE --
21 -- USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. --
23 -- Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright --
24 -- holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the --
25 -- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written --
27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28 -- $Id: TO-DO,v 1.56 2011/02/26 16:58:53 tom Exp $
29 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
31 SHORT-TERM TO-DO ITEMS:
35 + libtool does not work with GNAT.
37 + The screen optimization has been tested only in an ad hoc manner. We should
38 develop a good set of regression tests to cover lib_doupdate.c and
41 + Magic cookie support (for nonzero xmc values) does not work, since the logic
42 does not take into account refresh. Also, the initial optimize does not
43 adjust the current location when a cookie is emitted.
45 + Scrolling optimization has holes: for example, it forces repaints of the
46 screen between calls to refresh().
48 + SVr4 uses slightly different rules for determining when softkeys are shown.
49 For example, they are initially displayed (before the ncurses 'e' test
50 activates them), and a touchwin can apparently also force them to be
53 + The code departs from perfect 8-bit cleanness in one respect; you cannot
54 specify a character \200 as part of a capability string, because the
55 terminfo library interprets \200 as a request to embed NUL (\000) at that
56 point. This is a legacy terminfo property we can't mess with.
58 + The window classes defined in the c++ subdirectory need documentation. Some
59 C++ programmer could earn a lot of good karma by doing this...
61 + vid_attr() should support the set_a_attributes (sgr1) string, but does not.
62 There appear to be no terminals that require that functionality.
64 + the configure --disable-ext-funcs option does not work for Ada95 tree.
66 + the --with-pthread configuration builds for Cygwin, but does not work
67 properly (test/worm.c shows all of the worms in the same location).
69 + the Ada95 tree may require a small fix to build on Cygwin, since the GNAT
70 port to that platform for 3.4.4 provides an incomplete Interrupts.Names
71 package. For instance (your gcc version may be different):
72 /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-cygwin/3.4.4/adainclude/a-intnam.ads
75 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
76 --- a-intnam.ads.orig 2003-10-21 13:41:51.000000000 +0000
77 +++ a-intnam.ads 2007-05-05 22:40:02.609375000 +0000
80 DUMMY_INTERRUPT_1 : constant Interrupt_ID := 1;
81 DUMMY_INTERRUPT_2 : constant Interrupt_ID := 2;
82 + SIGINT : constant Interrupt_ID := 2;
84 end Ada.Interrupts.Names;
85 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
87 + the --enable-rpath configure option builds for the corresponding platforms;
88 however combining it with --with-ticlib and --with-termlib does not always
89 produce libraries that can be run without setting environment variables.
90 Building those with libtool does not work either. (This is a problem with
93 + more work is needed to make the MinGW port support ordinary terminals.
95 Portability (or lack thereof):
97 + Users of older System V UNIXes (but not Solaris, and probably not SVr4) may
98 trip over a known problem with the signal-handling code which causes abrupt
99 termination of ncurses applications following resume from a ^Z suspend (this
100 problem was first seen running lynx). You will not see this problem if you
101 are using one of the 4.4BSD derivatives like such as, NetBSD, or BSDI, or
102 systems using that convention. For details, see the analysis in the header
103 comment of ncurses/tty/lib_tstp.c .
105 + In theory, vwprintw and vwscanf are supposed to use the older varargs.h
106 interface for handling variadic argument lists (and are deprecated by X/Open
107 for that reason). Many newer systems do no have varargs.h, instead they have
108 only the newer X/Open-standard stdargs.h equivalent. So these functions use
109 stdargs instead. This is unlikely to be a problem unless you're building
110 ncurses on a System V old enough to only have varargs.h. (Solaris 2.5.1 used
111 the stdarg.h binding as well).
113 + If you're using a system old enough not to have a native vsscanf(3) in its
114 library, vwscanw() will not work. If you want to fix this, add an
115 implementation to ncurses/vsscanf.c.
117 + The C++ binding fails to build with a few C++ compilers.
119 + terminfo.5 does not format with the SunOS (and most other platform's) tbl
120 utility because it relies on a diversion for each table entry. Get the
125 + The code for the HP color model using set_color_pair is untested.
127 + The code for handling soft labels on a terminal type with built-in support
128 for them (num_labels > 0, label_height, label_width, label_format, label_off,
129 label_on, plab_norm, lab_f*) has not been tested. The label_format and
130 lab_f* capabilities aren't presently used.
132 LONGER-TERM TO-DO ITEMS:
134 1. Extended COSE conformance
136 There is an XPG4 standard released in 1996 which describes a superset
137 of the SVr4 API. The library is BASE conformant with this standard.
138 We would like to make ncurses fully conformant at the EXTENDED level
139 supporting internationalization.
143 Only a few of the files in the library depend on the terminfo format.
144 It should be possible to further kernelize the package, then rewrite
145 a small number of core files to produce a functionally-compatible
146 port that would do updates to a memory-mapped screen area. The first
147 result of this would be a DOS port.
151 It would be nice if ncurses could recognize when it was running under X and
152 maintain its own window. With this feature, all ncurses programs would
153 automatically become X programs. The challenge is to handle resize events
156 4. Unused capabilities
158 The currently unused capabilities fall naturally into several groups:
160 A. Status-line capabilities:
162 Booleans: has_status_line, status_line_esc_ok.
163 Numerics: width_status_line.
164 Strings: dis_status_line, from_status_line, to_status_line.
166 System V Release 1 curses made no use of these at all. SVr4's use, if
167 any, is unknown. From the AT&T termcap file it looks like curses, in general,
168 shouldn't use them; terminal variants with status lines have their line count
169 decremented by 1, suggesting that curses is supposed to leave the status line
172 B. Printer capabilities:
174 Boolean: col_addr_glitch, cr_cancels_micro_mode, has_print_wheel,
175 row_addr_glitch, semi_auto_right_margin, cpi_changes_res,
177 Numeric: buffer_capacity, dot_horz_spacing, dot_vert_spacing,
178 max_micro_address, max_micro_jump, micro_col_size,
179 micro_line_size, number_of_pins, output_res_char,
180 output_res_line, output_res_horz_inch, print_rate,
181 wide_char_size, bit_image_entwining, bit_image_type.
182 String: down_half_line, form_feed, up_half_line, set_left_margin,
183 set_right_margin, clear_margins, change_char_pitch
184 ... set_page_length (all the SVr4 printer caps),
186 Curses doesn't use these.
188 C. Printer-control capabilities:
190 Boolean: prtr_silent.
191 Strings: print_screen, prtr_on, prtr_off, prtr_non.
193 Curses doesn't use these.
197 Strings: hangup, dial_phone, quick_dial, tone, pulse, flash_hook,
198 fixed_pause, wait_tone.
200 Curses doesn't use these.
202 E. Window and virtual-terminal capabilities:
204 Numerics: maximum_windows, virtual_terminal.
205 Strings: req_for_input, create_window, goto_window, set_window.
207 These seem to be fossils from some AT&T experiments on character-based
208 window systems that never escaped the lab. The virtual_terminal cap had
209 something to do with building terminal emulations into tty line disciplines.
211 F. Unused VDT capabilities:
213 Booleans: erase_overstrike, has_meta_key, insert_null_glitch,
214 move_insert, dest_tabs_magic_smso, transparent_underline,
215 needs_xon_xoff, hard_cursor.
216 Numerics: lines_of_memory, buttons.
217 Strings: pkey_key, pkey_local, pkey_xmit, underline_char,
218 enter_xon_mode, exit_xon_mode, xon_character, xoff_character,
219 display_clock, remove_clock, user[0-5], display_pc_char,
220 enter_scancode_mode, exit_scancode_mode, pc_term_options,
221 scancode_escape, alt_scancode_esc.
223 These are the potentially important ones for ncurses. Notes:
225 i) ncurses doesn't need move_insert; it never uses cup/hpa/vpa while
228 ii) We probably don't care about dest_tabs_magic_smso; only
229 Telerays used it and they're all long obsolete.