Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses + 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 development work is done by Thomas E. Dickey. Thomas + E. Dickey has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software + Foundation, which held a copyright on ncurses for + releases 4.2 through 6.1. Following the release of ncurses 6.1, + effective as of release 6.2, copyright for ncurses reverted to + Thomas E. Dickey (see the ncurses FAQ for + additional information).

This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the + development and testing of this package.

The release notes make scattered references to these pages, + which may be interesting by themselves:

Other + resources

The distribution provides a newer version of the + terminfo-format terminal description file once maintained by + Eric + Raymond . Unlike the older version, the termcap and + terminfo data are provided in the same file, which also provides + several user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open + specification.

You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics + not covered in the terminfo file at + Richard Shuford's archive . The collection of computer + manuals at bitsavers.org has also been + useful.

Overview
+ Release Notes +
- + Library improvements
  - 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. +
  - New features
  - correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow - cross-compiling from a separate directory tree. +
  - Other + improvements
  +
- + Program improvements +
  - Utilities
  - Examples
  +
- -
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 documented). -
Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color, -forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition of keypad -and function keys. -
An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting -a stack of windows with backing store, is included. -
An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting -a uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is included. -
An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting -data collection through on-screen forms, is included. -
Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) implementation -are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format SVr4 curses uses. -
The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo -entries for use with less capable curses/terminfo -versions such as the HP/UX and AIX ports.

- -The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4: - -

The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN curses -specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE level features, -but not all EXTENDED features). Most EXTENDED-level features not directly -concerned with wide-character support are implemented, including many -function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all -calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only). -
Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner -of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability. -
Ada95 and C++ bindings. -
Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 console windows. -
Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package. -
The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving -their data. -
The function use_default_colors() allows you to -use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair, -achieving the effect of transparent colors. -
The functions keyok() -and define_key() allow -you to better control the use of function keys, -e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, -or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key code. -
Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm. -
Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a -cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's -or System V's. -
Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code incorporates -a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it to make optimal -use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and line-deletion -for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more powerful than -the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine. -
Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The -screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the magic- -cookie unattributed spaces required just before the beginning and -after the end would step on a non-space character. It will -automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so would make it -possible to draw the highlight without changing the visual appearance -of the screen. -
It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded -fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal types even -when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible (this may be useful -for support of screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user mode). -
The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the -ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and -AT&T extension sets. -
A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided. -
The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo -entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory -if it exists and the user has no write access to the system directory. -This feature makes it easier for users to have personal terminfo entries -without giving up access to the system terminfo directory. -
You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled -descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this -generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System V.) -
In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to -other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to -compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the user's -$HOME/.terminfo directory. -
A script (capconvert) is provided to help BSD users -transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a -TERMCAP environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file -and converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo. -
Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in -when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is neither -fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have to, -but it's there. -
The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to -see exactly what terminal types are available on the system. -
The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry -point have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be -prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with -#undef. -
An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document provides -a narrative introduction to the curses programming interface. -

- -

State of the Package

- -Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the -library is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many -`dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe -according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks and -arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.

- -The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications -including (versions starting with those noted): -

cdk -: Curses Development Kit -
-http://invisible-island.net/cdk/ -
-http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/ -
ded -: directory-editor -
-http://invisible-island.net/ded/ -
dialog -: the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the basis -for similar applications on GNU/Linux. -
-http://invisible-island.net/dialog/ -
lynx -: the character-screen WWW browser -
-http://lynx.isc.org/release/ -
Midnight Commander -: file manager -
-http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/ -
mutt -: mail utility -
-http://www.mutt.org/ -
ncftp -: file-transfer utility -
-http://www.ncftp.com/ -
nvi -: New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and later. -
-http://www.bostic.com/vi/ -
-
pinfo -: Lynx-like info browser. -http://dione.ids.pl/~pborys/software/pinfo/ -
tin -: newsreader, supporting color, MIME -http://www.tin.org/ -
vh-1.6 -: Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File -
-http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html -

-as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone: -

minicom -: terminal emulator -
-http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html -
vile -: vi-like-emacs -
-http://invisible-island.net/vile/ -

- -The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs (including -a few games). - -

Who's Who and What's What

- -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. -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. -

- -To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to -bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line: -

-             subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
-

- -This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and -testing of this package.

- -Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made available at -ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ . - -

Future Plans

Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization support. -
Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows. -

-We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in working -on them, please join the ncurses list. - -

Other Related Resources

- -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 . - - - +

Terminal database

+ +

Documentation

+ +

Interesting bug-fixes

+ +

+ Configuration changes +