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<H1>Release Notes</H1>
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.4;
+This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.5;
very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
-These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.4 release.
+These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.5 release.
<p>
Interface changes:
<ul>
- <li>terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than
- "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6).
-
- <li>terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems
- still use ncurses 4.2).
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>modify parameter type in c++ binding for insch() and mvwinsch() to
- be consistent with underlying ncurses library (was char, is chtype).
-
- <li>change NCursesWindow::err_handler() to a virtual function.
-
- <li>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.
-
-
- <li>add symbol to curses.h which can be used to suppress include of
- stdbool.h, e.g.,
- <pre>
- #define NCURSES_ENABLE_STDBOOL_H 0
- #include <curses.h>
- </pre>
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the
- wide-character configuration.
-
- <li>assume_default_colors() no longer requires that
- use_default_colors() be called first.
-
- <li>data_ahead() now works with wide-characters.
-
- <li>slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or
- multicolumn characters.
-
- <li>start_color() now returns OK if colors have
- already been started.
- start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory.
-
- <li>pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair()
- if it corresponds to the default-color.
-
- <li>unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond
- to an unsigned char.
+ <li>generate linkable stubs for some macros:
+ <br>
+ getbegx, getbegy, getcurx, getcury, getmaxx, getmaxy, getparx,
+ getpary, getpary,
+ <br>
+ and (for libncursesw)
+ <br>
+ wgetbkgrnd
</ul>
New features and improvements:
<ul>
<li>library
- <ul>
- <li>environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports
- miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate
- character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode.
-
- <li>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.
+ <ul>
+ <li>support hashed databases for the terminal descriptions.
+ This uses the Berkeley database, has been tested for
+ several versions on different platforms.
+
+ <li>add <code>use_legacy_coding()</code> function to support
+ lynx's font-switching feature.
+
+ <li>add extension <code>nofilter()</code>, to cancel a prior
+ <code>filter()</code> call.
+
+ <li>add/install a package config script, e.g.,
+ <code>ncurses5-config</code> or
+ <code>ncursesw5-config</code>, according to
+ configuration options.
+
+ <li>provide ifdef for <code>NCURSES_NOMACROS</code> which
+ suppresses most macro definitions from curses.h, i.e.,
+ where a macro is defined to override a function to improve
+ performance.
+
+ <li>make ifdef's consistent in <code>curses.h</code> for the
+ extended colors so the header file can be used for the
+ normal curses library. The header file installed for
+ extended colors is a variation of the wide-character
+ configuration.
+
+ <li>improve <code>tgetstr()</code> by making the return value
+ point into the user's buffer, if provided.
+
+ <li>add ifdef's allowing ncurses to be built with
+ <code>tparm()</code> using either varargs (the existing
+ status), or using a fixed-parameter list (to match X/Open).
+
+ <li>widen the test for xterm <code>kmous</code> a little to
+ <code>allow</code> for other
+ strings than "\E[M", e.g., for <code>xterm-sco</code>
+ functionality in xterm.
+
+ <li>modify <code>wgetnstr()</code> to return
+ <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> if a sigwinch occurs.
+
+ <li>move prototypes for wide-character trace functions from
+ curses.tail to curses.wide to avoid accidental reference to
+ those if <code>_XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED</code> is defined
+ without ensuring that <wchar.h> is included.
+
+ <li>change the way shared libraries (other than libtool) are
+ installed. Rather than copying the build-tree's libraries,
+ link the shared objects into the install directory. This
+ makes the <code>--with-rpath</code> option work except with
+ <code>$(DESTDIR)</code>.
+
+ <li>several improvements for rendering in hpterm. These are
+ only available if the library is configured using
+ <code>--enable-xmc-glitch</code>.
+
+ <li>Add <code>NCURSES_NO_HARD_TABS</code> and
+ <code>NCURSES_NO_MAGIC_COOKIE</code> environment variables
+ to allow runtime suppression of the related hard-tabs and
+ xmc-glitch features.
+ </ul>
- <li>change GPM initialization, using dl library to load it
- dynamically at runtime.
-
- <li>form, menu and panel libraries support debug-tracing.
-
- </ul>
+ <li>programs:
+ <ul>
+ <li>add new test programs: chgat.c, demo_altkeys.c,
+ echochar.c, foldkeys.c, movewindow.c, redraw.c, (noting
+ that existing test programs also were modified to test
+ additional features).
+
+ <li>modify tack to test extended capability function-key
+ strings.
+
+ <li>modify toe to access termcap data, e.g., via <code>cgetent()</code>
+ functions, or as a text file if those are not available.
+
+ <li>improve infocmp/tic <code>-f</code> option formatting.
+
+ <li>add <code>toe -a</code> option, to show all databases.
+ This uses new private interfaces in the ncurses library for
+ iterating through the list of databases.
+
+ <li>modify <code>MKfallback.sh</code> to use
+ <code>tic -x</code> when constructing fallback tables to
+ allow extended capabilities to be retrieved from a fallback entry.
+ </ul>
+
+ <li>terminal database
+ <ul>
+ <li>add terminfo entries for xfce terminal (xfce) and multi gnome terminal (mgt)
+ <li>add nsterm-16color entry
+ <li>updated mlterm terminfo entry
+ <li>add kon, kon2 and jfbterm terminfo entry
+ <li>remove invis capability from klone+sgr, mainly used by linux entry, since it does not really do this
+ <li>add ka2, kb1, kb3, kc2 to vt220-keypad as an extension
+ <li>add shifted up/down arrow codes to xterm-new as kind/kri strings
+ <li>add hpterm-color terminfo entry
+ <li>add 256color variants of terminfo entries for programs which are reported to implement this feature
+ <li>correct order of use-clauses in rxvt-basic entry which made codes for f1-f4 vt100-style rather than vt220-style.
+ </ul>
+</ul>
+Major bug fixes:
+<ul>
+ <li>correct a typo in configure <code>--with-bool</code> option for the
+ case where <code>--without-cxx</code> is used.
- <li>add NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html by Pradeep Padala
- (see http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/).
+ <li>move assignment from environment variable <code>ESCDELAY</code>
+ from <code>initscr()</code> down to <code>newterm()</code> so the
+ environment variable affects timeouts for terminals opened with
+ newterm() as well.
- <li>programs:
+ <li>modify <code>werase</code> to clear multicolumn characters that
+ extend into a derived window.
- <li>infocmp:
- <ul>
- <li>The -i option now matches 8-bit controls against its table
- entries, e.g., so it can analyze the xterm-8bit entry.
+ <li>modify <code>wchgat()</code> to mark updated cells as changed so a
+ refresh will repaint those cells.
- <li>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.
+ <li>correct logic in <code>wadd_wch()</code> and
+ <code>wecho_wch()</code>, which did not guard against passing the
+ multi-column attribute into a call on <code>waddch()</code>, e.g.,
+ using data returned by <code>win_wch()</code>
- </ul>
+ <li>fix redrawing of windows other than <code>stdscr</code> using
+ <code>wredrawln()</code> by touching the corresponding rows in
+ <code>curscr</code>.
- <li>tic:
+ <li>reduce memory leaks in repeated calls to <code>tgetent()</code> by
+ remembering the last <code>TERMINAL*</code> value allocated to hold
+ the corresponding data and freeing that if the
+ <code>tgetent()</code> result buffer is the same as the previous
+ call.
- <ul>
+ <li>modify <code>read_termtype()</code> so the <code>term_names</code>
+ data is always allocated as part of the <code>str_table</code>, a
+ better fix for a memory leak.
- <li>modify termcap-parsing to retain 2-character aliases at the
- beginning of an entry if the "-x" option is used in tic.
+ <li>fix <code>wins_nwstr(),</code> which did not handle single-column
+ non-8bit codes.
- <li>filter out long extended names when translating to termcap
- format. Only two characters are permissible for termcap
- capability names.
+ <li>modify <code>wbkgrnd()</code> to avoid clearing the
+ <code>A_CHARTEXT</code> attribute bits since those record the state
+ of multicolumn characters.
- <li>correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap,
- e.g., using "tic -C".
+ <li>improve <code>SIGWINCH</code> handling by postponing its effect
+ during <code>newterm()</code>, etc., when allocating screens.
- <li>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.
+ <li>remove 970913 feature for copying subwindows as they are moved in
+ <code>mvwin()</code>.
- <li>add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a
- following line begins in column 1.
+ <li>add checks in <code>waddchnstr()</code> and
+ <code>wadd_wchnstr()</code> to stop copying when a null character
+ is found.
- <li>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.
+ <li>add some checks to ensure current position is within scrolling
+ region before scrolling on a new line.
- <li>add check (with debug configuration) that provides about the
- runtime changes that would be made to sgr0 for termcap
- applications.
+ <li>add a workaround to ACS mapping to allow applications such as
+ test/blue.c to use the "PC ROM" characters by masking them with
+ A_ALTCHARSET. This worked up til 5.5, but was lost in the revision
+ of legacy coding.
+</ul>
- </ul>
+Portability:
+<ul>
+ <li>configure script:
+ <ul>
+ <li>new options:
+ <dl>
- <li>tset:
+ <dt>--with-hashed-db
+ <dd>Use Berkeley hashed database for storing terminfo data rather than storing
+ each compiled entry in a separate binary file within a directory
+ tree.
- <ul>
+ <dt>--without-dlsym
+ <dd>Do not use <code>dlsym()</code> to load GPM dynamically.
- <li>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.
+ <dt>--with-valgrind
+ <dd>Simplify building for testing with valgrind.
- </ul>
+ <dt>--enable-wgetch-events
+ <dd>Compile with experimental wgetch-events code.
-</ul>
-Major bug fixes:
-<ul>
+ <dt>--enable-signed-char
+ <dd>Store booleans in "signed char" rather than "char".
- <li>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.
+ </dl>
- <li>cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
- character are encoded differently, making repainting more
- reliable.
+ <li>improved options:
+ <dl>
- <li>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.
+ <dt>--disable-largefile
+ <dd>make the option work both ways.
- <li>make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is
- pointing to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
+ <dt>--with-gpm
+ <dd>The option now accepts a parameter,
+ i.e., the name of the dynamic GPM library to load via
+ <code>dlopen()</code>
- <li>win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell.
+ <dt>--disable-symlinks
+ <dd>The option now allows one to
+ disable <code>symlink()</code> in <code>tic</code> even when
+ <code>link()</code> does not work.
- <li>resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy.
+ </dl>
- <li>disable GPM mouse support when $TERM happens to be prefixed with
- "xterm". Gpm_Open() would otherwise assert that it can deal with
- mouse events in this case.
+ </ul>
- <li>add SP->_screen_acs_map[], used to ensure that mapping of missing
- line-drawing characters is handled properly. For example, ACS_DARROW
- is absent from xterm-new, and it was coincidentally displayed the
- same as ACS_BTEE.
+ <li>other configure/build issues: <ul> <li>remove special case for
+ Darwin in <code>CF_XOPEN_SOURCE</code> configure macro.
-</ul>
+ <li>add configure check to ensure that <code>SIGWINCH</code> is
+ defined on platforms such as OS X which exclude that when
+ <code>_XOPEN_SOURCE,</code> etc., are defined
-Portability:
-<ul>
- <li>configure script:
- <ul>
- <li>new options:
- <dl>
- <dt>--enable-largefile
- <dd>set compiler and linker flags to use largefile support.
+ <li>use ld's <code>-search_paths_first</code> option on Darwin
+ to work around odd search rules on that platform.
- <dt>--enable-ext-colors
- <dd>Allow encoding of 256 foreground
- and background colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or
- xterm-88color terminfo entries.
- This requires ABI 6 because it changes the size of cchar_t.
+ <li>improve ifdef's for <code>_POSIX_VDISABLE</code> in tset to
+ work with Mac OS X.
- <dt>--enable-ext-mouse
- <dd>This defines NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION 2, and modifies the encoding of
- mouse events to support wheel mice, which may transmit buttons
- 4 and 5. This works with xterm and similar terminal
- emulators.
- This requires ABI 6 because it changes the encoding of
- mouse events.
+ <li>modify configure script to ensure that if the C compiler is
+ used rather than the loader in making shared libraries, the
+ <code>$(CFLAGS)</code> variable is also used.
- <dt>--with-chtype
- <dd>overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of chtype
+ <li>use <code>${CC}</code> rather than <code>${LD}</code> in
+ shared library rules for IRIX64, Solaris to help ensure
+ that initialization sections are provided for extra linkage
+ requirements, e.g., of C++ applications.
- <dt>--with-mmask-t
- <dd>overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of mmask_t
+ <li>improve some shared-library configure scripting for Linux,
+ FreeBSD and NetBSD to make
+ <code>--with-shlib-version</code> work.
- <dt>--without-xterm-new
- <dd>Installs "xterm-old" as the "xterm" entry of the terminfo
- database.
+ <li>split up dependency of <code>names.c</code> and
+ <code>codes.c</code> in <code>ncurses/Makefile</code> to
+ work with parallel make.
- </dl>
+ <li>modify <code>MKlib_gen.sh</code> to change
+ preprocessor-expanded <code>_Bool</code> back to <code>bool</code>.
- <li>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
+ <li>modify <code>progs/Makefile.in</code> to make
+ <code>tput init</code> work properly with cygwin,
+ i.e., do not pass a <code>.exe</code> in the reference
+ string used in check_aliases.
+ </ul>
- <li>fixes/improvements for cross-compiling:
+ <li>library:
+ <ul>
+ <li>ignore wide-acs line-drawing characters that
+ <code>wcwidth()</code> claims are not one-column. This is
+ a workaround for Solaris' broken locale support.
- <ul>
- <li>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.
+ <li>reduce name-pollution in <code>term.h</code> by removing
+ <code>#define</code>'s for HAVE_xxx symbols.
- <li>correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow
- cross-compiling from a separate directory tree.
+ <li>fix <code>#ifdef</code> in <code>c++/internal.h</code> for
+ QNX 6.1
+ </ul>
- </ul>
+ <li>test programs: <ul> <li>modify <code>test/configure</code> script
+ to allow building test programs with PDCurses/X11.
- </ul>
+ <li>modified test programs to allow some to work with NetBSD
+ curses. Several do not because NetBSD curses implements a
+ subset of X/Open curses, and also lacks much of SVr4
+ additions. But it is enough for comparison.
- <li>library:
- <ul>
+ <li>improved <code>test/configure</code> to build test/ncurses
+ on HPUX 11 using the vendor curses.
- <li>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.
-
- <li>modify C++ binding to use some C internal functions to make it
- compile properly on Solaris (and other platforms).
-
- <li>remove check in newwin() that prevents allocating windows that
- extend beyond the screen (Solaris does this).
-
- <li>check for <code>nl_langinfo(CODESET)</code>, 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 <code>setlocale()</code>
- should be corrected, to make them work properly with
- UTF-8 encoding.
- <br>
- <strong>In particular, applications which assume (and
- do not call <code>setlocale()</code>) 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 <code>nl_langinfo(CODESET)</code> is available.</strong>
-
- <li>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.
-
- </ul>
+ <li>change configure script to produce
+ <code>test/Makefile</code> from data file.
+ </ul>
</ul>
<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
<UL>
<LI>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
+and most EXTENDED features).
+It includes many function calls not supported under SVr4 curses
+(but portability of all
calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
<LI>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner
of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability.
<LI>Ada95 and C++ bindings.
-<LI>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 console windows.
+<LI>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm
+and FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.
<LI>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
<LI>The function <CODE>wresize()</CODE> allows you to resize windows, preserving
their data.
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.
-<LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm.
+<LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and modern xterm.
<LI>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
or System V's.
<DT> minicom
<DD> terminal emulator
<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html">http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html</A>
+<A HREF="http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">
+http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</A>
<DT> vile
<DD> vi-like-emacs
<br>
<H2>Other Related Resources</H2>
The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
-terminal description file maintained by
+terminal description file once maintained by
<A HREF="http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/">Eric Raymond</A> .
Unlike the older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided
-in the same file.<P>
+in the same file, and provides several user-definable extensions
+beyond the X/Open specification.<P>
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff