+
+ The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU
+ distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
+ It is also available at [2]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
+
+ Release Notes
+
+ This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0
+ through 5.4; very few applications will require recompilation,
+ depending on the platform. These are the highlights from the
+ change-log since ncurses 5.4 release.
+
+ Interface changes:
+ * terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
+ "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
+ * terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
+ still use ncurses 4.2).
+ * modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing
+ initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are
+ still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old
+ compilers.
+ * modify parameter type in c++ binding for insch() and mvwinsch() to
+ be consistent with underlying ncurses library (was char, is
+ chtype).
+ * change NCursesWindow::err_handler() to a virtual function.
+ * form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data.
+ Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the
+ FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw,
+ since that no longer points to an array of char. The
+ set_field_buffer() and field_buffer() functions translate to/from
+ the actual field data.
+ * add symbol to curses.h which can be used to suppress include of
+ stdbool.h, e.g.,
+ #define NCURSES_ENABLE_STDBOOL_H 0
+ #include <curses.h>
+
+ * change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure
+ that libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason
+ for this is that the corresponding data which belongs to the
+ upper-level ncurses library has a different size in each model.
+ * winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
+ wide-character configuration.
+ * assume_default_colors() no longer requires that
+ use_default_colors() be called first.
+ * data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
+ * slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
+ multicolumn characters.
+ * start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started.
+ start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
+ * pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if
+ it corresponds to the default-color.
+ * unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond to
+ an unsigned char.
+
+ New features and improvements:
+ * library
+ + environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports
+ miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate
+ character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode.
+ + modify initialization of key lookup table so that if an
+ extended capability (tic -x) string is defined, and its name
+ begins with 'k', ncurses will automatically treat it as a
+ key.
+ + change GPM initialization, using dl library to load it
+ dynamically at runtime.
+ + form, menu and panel libraries support debug-tracing.
+ * add NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html by Pradeep Padala (see
+ http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/).
+ * programs:
+ * infocmp:
+ + The -i option now matches 8-bit controls against its table
+ entries, e.g., so it can analyze the xterm-8bit entry.
+ + add "-x" option to infocmp like tic's "-x", for use in "-F"
+ comparisons. This modifies infocmp to only report extended
+ capabilities if the -x option is given, making this more
+ consistent with tic. Some scripts may break, since infocmp
+ previous gave this information without an option.
+ * tic:
+ + modify termcap-parsing to retain 2-character aliases at the
+ beginning of an entry if the "-x" option is used in tic.
+ + filter out long extended names when translating to termcap
+ format. Only two characters are permissible for termcap
+ capability names.
+ + correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap,
+ e.g., using "tic -C".
+ + modify the "-c -v" options to ignore delays when comparing
+ strings. Also modify it to ignore a canceled sgr string,
+ e.g., for terminals which cannot properly combine attributes
+ in one control sequence.
+ + add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a
+ following line begins in column 1.
+ + add a check in tic for terminfo entries having an sgr0 but no
+ sgr string. This confuses Tru64 and HPUX curses when combined
+ with color, e.g., making them leave line-drawing characters
+ in odd places.
+ + add check (with debug configuration) that provides about the
+ runtime changes that would be made to sgr0 for termcap
+ applications.
+ * tset:
+ + add -c and -w options to allow user to suppress ncurses'
+ resizing of the terminal emulator window in the special case
+ where it is not able to detect the true size.
+
+ Major bug fixes:
+ * improve logic in tgetent() which adjusts the termcap "me" string
+ to work with ISO-2022 string used in xterm-new. This is a feature
+ that was incompletely implemented in ncurses 5.3. ncurses attempts
+ to provide termcap clients with the portion of the sgr0 (termcap
+ "me") string that does not reset line-drawing.
+ * cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
+ character are encoded differently, making repainting more
+ reliable.
+ * amend change to setupterm() in ncurses 5.4 (20030405) which would
+ reuse the value of cur_term if the same output was selected. This
+ now reuses it only when setupterm() is called from tgetent(),
+ which has no notion of separate SCREENs. Note that tgetent() must
+ be called after initscr() or newterm() to use this feature.
+ * make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is pointing
+ to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
+ * win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell.
+ * resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy.
+ * disable GPM mouse support when $TERM happens to be prefixed with
+ "xterm". Gpm_Open() would otherwise assert that it can deal with
+ mouse events in this case.
+ * add SP->_screen_acs_map[], used to ensure that mapping of missing
+ line-drawing characters is handled properly. For example,
+ ACS_DARROW is absent from xterm-new, and it was coincidentally
+ displayed the same as ACS_BTEE.
+
+ Portability:
+ * configure script:
+ + new options:
+
+ --enable-largefile
+ set compiler and linker flags to use largefile
+ support.
+
+ --enable-ext-colors
+ Allow encoding of 256 foreground and background
+ colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
+ xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6
+ because it changes the size of cchar_t.
+
+ --enable-ext-mouse
+ This defines NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION 2, and modifies
+ the encoding of mouse events to support wheel mice,
+ which may transmit buttons 4 and 5. This works with
+ xterm and similar terminal emulators. This requires
+ ABI 6 because it changes the encoding of mouse
+ events.
+
+ --with-chtype
+ overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of chtype
+
+ --with-mmask-t
+ overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of mmask_t
+
+ --without-xterm-new
+ Installs "xterm-old" as the "xterm" entry of the
+ terminfo database.
+
+ + The --with-termlib option now accepts a value which sets the
+ name of the terminfo library. This would allow a packager to
+ build libtinfow.so renamed to coincide with libtinfo.so
+ + fixes/improvements for cross-compiling:
+ o suppress $suffix in misc/run_tic.sh when
+ cross-compiling. This allows cross-compiles to use the
+ host's tic program to handle the "make install.data"
+ step.
+ o correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in
+ ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow cross-compiling from a
+ separate directory tree.
+ * library:
+ + add ifdef's for _LP64 in curses.h to avoid using wasteful
+ 64-bits for chtype and mmask_t, but add configure option
+ --disable-lp64 in case anyone used that configuration.
+ + modify C++ binding to use some C internal functions to make
+ it compile properly on Solaris (and other platforms).
+ + remove check in newwin() that prevents allocating windows
+ that extend beyond the screen (Solaris does this).
+ + check for nl_langinfo(CODESET), use it if available. This
+ replaces ad hoc tests of environment variables to check if
+ the terminal is setup for UTF-8 encoding. Applications which
+ do not call setlocale() should be corrected, to make them
+ work properly with UTF-8 encoding.
+ In particular, applications which assume (and do not call
+ setlocale()) that Latin-1 codes are printable will no longer
+ work in a UTF-8 locale since the ad hoc check of environment
+ variables to see if the locale was UTF-8 is not used when
+ nl_langinfo(CODESET) is available.
+ + use setlocale() to query the program's current locale rather
+ than using getenv(). This supports applications which rely
+ upon legacy treatment of 8-bit characters when the locale is
+ not initialized.
+
+ Features of Ncurses
+
+ The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4)
+ curses:
+ * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are