-Announcing ncurses @VERSION@ Pre-Release
+Announcing ncurses @VERSION@
+
@@ -18,8 +19,8 @@ and multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping,
and has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.
In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
-considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of
-Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to
+considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the keepers of
+Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to
ncurses.
The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux.
@@ -35,173 +36,280 @@ the library and tools.
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and 5.2;
+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 5.2 release.
+These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.4 release.
Interface changes:
-
change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL,
- which usually is the same as the compiler's definition for
- bool.
+
terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
+ "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
-
add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
- These are only available if the library is configured using the
- --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
-
-
pecho_wchar()
-
slk_wset()
-
+
terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
+ still use ncurses 4.2).
-
add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to
- modify the assume_default_colors() extension.
+
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.,
+
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:
-
Improved support for termcap applications:
-
-
add logic to dump_entry.c to remove function-key definitions that do
- not fit into the 1023-byte limit for generated termcaps. This makes
- hds200 fit.
+
library
+
+
environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports
+ miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate
+ character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode.
-
modify tgetent() to check if exit_attribute_mode resets the alternate
- character set, and if so, attempt to adjust the copy of the termcap
- "me" string which it will return to eliminate that part. In
- particular, 'screen' would lose track of line-drawing characters.
+
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.
-
add check/fix to comp_parse.c to suppress warning about missing acsc
- string. This happens in configurations where raw termcap information
- is processed; tic already does this and other checks.
+
change GPM initialization, using dl library to load it
+ dynamically at runtime.
-
add tic -A option to suppress capabilities which are commented out
- when translating to termcap.
+
form, menu and panel libraries support debug-tracing.
-
modify logic in lib_baudrate.c for ospeed, for FreeBSD to make it
- work properly for termcap applications (patch by Andrey A Chernov).
+
-
+
add NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html by Pradeep Padala
+ (see http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/).
-
add a call to _nc_keypad() in keypad() to accommodate applications
- such as nvi, which use curses for output but not for input (fixes
- Debian #131263, cf: 20011215).
+
programs:
-
correct logic for COLORFGBG environment variable: if rxvt is compiled
- with xpm support, the variable has three fields, making it slightly
- incompatible with itself. In either case, the background color is
- the last field.
-
-Major bug fixes:
-
-
rewrote limit-checks in wscrl() and associated _nc_scroll_window(),
- to ensure that if the parameter of wscrl() is larger than the size of
- the scrolling region, then the scrolling region will be cleared.
+
infocmp:
+
+
The -i option now matches 8-bit controls against its table
+ entries, e.g., so it can analyze the xterm-8bit entry.
-
modify tset to restore original I/O modes if an error is encountered.
- Also modify to use buffered stderr consistently rather than mixing
- with write().
+
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.
-
move calls to def_shell_mode() and def_prog_mode() before loop with
- callbacks in lib_set_term.c, since the c++ demo otherwise initialized
- the tty modes before saving them.
+
-
modified wresize() to ensure that a failed realloc will not corrupt
- the window structure, and to make subwindows fit within the resized
- window.
+
tic:
-
altered resizeterm() to avoid having it fail when a child window
- cannot be resized because it would be larger than its parent.
+
-
correct/improve logic to produce an exit status for errors in tput,
- which did not exit with an error when told to put a string not in the
- current terminfo entry.
+
modify termcap-parsing to retain 2-character aliases at the
+ beginning of an entry if the "-x" option is used in tic.
-
modify behavior of can_clear_with() so that if an application is
- running in a non-bce terminals with default colors enabled, it
- returns true, allowing the user to select/paste text without picking
- up extraneous trailing blanks.
+
filter out long extended names when translating to termcap
+ format. Only two characters are permissible for termcap
+ capability names.
-
add a check in relative_move() to guard against buffer overflow in
- the overwrite logic.
+
correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap,
+ e.g., using "tic -C".
-
add some limit/pointer checks to -S option of tputs.
+
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.
-
modify mvcur() to avoid emitting newline characters when nonl() mode
- is set. Normally this is not a problem since the actual terminal
- mode is set to suppress nl/crlf translations, however it is useful to
- allow the caller to manipulate the terminal mode to avoid staircasing
- effects after spawning a process which writes messages (for lynx
- 2.8.4).
-
+
add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a
+ following line begins in column 1.
-Portability:
-
-
configure script:
-
-
modify check in --disable-overwrite option so that it is used by
- default unless the --prefix/$prefix value is not /usr, in attempt to
- work around packagers who do not read the INSTALL notes.
+
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.
-
correct a typo in configure --enable-colorfgbg option, and move it
- to the experimental section (cf: 20011208).
+
add check (with debug configuration) that provides about the
+ runtime changes that would be made to sgr0 for termcap
+ applications.
-
modify configure script to allow building with termcap only, or with
- fallbacks only. In this case, we do not build tic and toe.
+
-
modify run_tic.sh to check if the build is a cross-compile. In that
- case, do not use the build's tic to install the terminfo database.
+
tset:
-
modify c++/Makefile.in to accommodate archive programs that are
- different for C++ than for C, and add cases for vendor's C++
- compilers on Solaris and IRIX.
+
-
add several configure script options to aid with cross-compiling:
- --with-build-cc, --with-build-cflags, --with-build-ldflags, and
- --with-build-libs.
+
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.
-
add experimental --with-caps=XXX option to customize to similar
- terminfo database formats such as AIX 4.x
+
+
+
+Major bug fixes:
+
-
add configure option --with-ospeed to assist packagers in transition
- to 5.3 change to ospeed type.
-
+
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.
-
library:
-
-
implement a simple vsscanf() fallback function which uses the %n
- conversion to help parse the input data.
+
cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
+ character are encoded differently, making repainting more
+ reliable.
-
various fixes to build/work with different implementations of
- vsscanf().
+
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.
-
add/use macro to suppress sign-extension of char type on
- platforms where this is a problem in ctype macros, e.g., Solaris.
+
make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is
+ pointing to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
-
finish changes needed to build dll's on cygwin.
+
win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell.
-
add #undef's before possible redefinition of ERR and OK in curses.h
-
+
resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy.
-
programs:
-
-
modify ifdef's in write_entry.c to allow use of symbolic links on
- platforms with no hard links, e.g., BeOS.
+
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.
-
modify _nc_write_entry() to allow for the possibility that linking
- aliases on a filesystem that ignores case would not succeed because
- the source and destination differ only by case, e.g., NCR260VT300WPP0
- on cygwin.
+
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.
-
modify logic in tic, toe, tput and tset which checks for basename of
- argv[0] to work properly on systems such as OS/2 which have
- case-independent filenames and/or program suffixes, e.g., ".ext".
-
+
+
+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:
+
+
+
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.
+
+
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
@@ -317,61 +425,60 @@ including (versions starting with those noted):
-The original developers of ncurses are Zeyd Ben-Halim and
-Eric S. Raymond.
+Zeyd Ben-Halim
+started it from a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis.
+Eric S. Raymond
+continued development.
+Jürgen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries.
Ongoing work is being done by
-Thomas Dickey
-and
-Jürgen Pfeifer.
-Thomas Dickey
-acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the
-copyright on ncurses.
+Thomas Dickey.
+Thomas Dickey
+acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation,
+which holds the copyright on ncurses.
Contact the current maintainers at
bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
@@ -404,7 +511,7 @@ This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and
testing of this package.
@@ -416,14 +523,16 @@ on them, please join the ncurses list.
Other Related Resources
-The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format
-terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond.
-http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo.
+The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
+terminal description file maintained by
+Eric Raymond .
+Unlike the older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided
+in the same file.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at
Richard Shuford's
-archive.
+archive .