-<HTML>
-<HEAD>
-<TITLE>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@ Pre-Release</TITLE>
-<link rev=made href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
-</HEAD>
-<BODY>
-
-<H1>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</H1>
-
-The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
-curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format,
-supports pads and color
-and multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping,
-and has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.<P>
-
-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
-ncurses.<P>
-
-The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux.
-It has been in use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library,
-and on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package.
-It should port easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX.
-It has even been ported to OS/2 Warp!<P>
-
-The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including a
-terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), tput(1), tset(1),
-and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for
-the library and tools.<P>
-
-The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at
-the GNU distribution site
-<A HREF="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses</A>.
-<br>It is also available at
-<A HREF="ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses</A>.
-
-<H1>Release Notes</H1>
-
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and 5.2;
-very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
-These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.2 release.
-<p>
-Interface changes:
-<ul>
- <li>change type for bool used in headers to <code>NCURSES_BOOL</code>,
- which usually is the same as the compiler's definition for
- <code>bool</code>.
-
- <li>add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character support.
- These are only available if the library is configured using the
- <kbd>--enable-widec</kbd> option. Missing functions are
- <ul>
- <li>pecho_wchar()
- <li>slk_wset()
- </ul>
-
- <li>add environment variable <code>$NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS</code> to
- modify the <code>assume_default_colors()</code> extension.
-
-</ul>
-New features and improvements:
-<ul>
- <li>Improved support for termcap applications:
- <ul>
- <li>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.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>add tic -A option to suppress capabilities which are commented out
- when translating to termcap.
-
- <li>modify logic in lib_baudrate.c for ospeed, for FreeBSD to make it
- work properly for termcap applications (patch by Andrey A Chernov).
-
- </ul>
-
- <li>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).
-
- <li>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.
-</ul>
-Major bug fixes:
-<ul>
- <li>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.
-
- <li>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().
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>modified wresize() to ensure that a failed realloc will not corrupt
- the window structure, and to make subwindows fit within the resized
- window.
-
- <li>altered resizeterm() to avoid having it fail when a child window
- cannot be resized because it would be larger than its parent.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>add a check in relative_move() to guard against buffer overflow in
- the overwrite logic.
-
- <li>add some limit/pointer checks to -S option of tputs.
-
- <li>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).
-</ul>
-
-Portability:
-<ul>
- <li>configure script:
- <ul>
- <li>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.
-
- <li>correct a typo in configure --enable-colorfgbg option, and move it
- to the experimental section (cf: 20011208).
-
- <li>modify configure script to allow building with termcap only, or with
- fallbacks only. In this case, we do not build tic and toe.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>add several configure script options to aid with cross-compiling:
- --with-build-cc, --with-build-cflags, --with-build-ldflags, and
- --with-build-libs.
-
- <li>add experimental --with-caps=XXX option to customize to similar
- terminfo database formats such as AIX 4.x
-
- <li>add configure option --with-ospeed to assist packagers in transition
- to 5.3 change to ospeed type.
- </ul>
-
- <li>library:
- <ul>
- <li>implement a simple vsscanf() fallback function which uses the %n
- conversion to help parse the input data.
-
- <li>various fixes to build/work with different implementations of
- vsscanf().
-
- <li>add/use macro to suppress sign-extension of char type on
- platforms where this is a problem in ctype macros, e.g., Solaris.
-
- <li>finish changes needed to build dll's on cygwin.
-
- <li>add #undef's before possible redefinition of ERR and OK in curses.h
- </ul>
-
- <li>programs:
- <ul>
- <li>modify ifdef's in write_entry.c to allow use of symbolic links on
- platforms with no hard links, e.g., BeOS.
-
- <li>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.
-
- <li>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".
- </ul>
-</ul>
-
-<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
-
-The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
-
-<UL>
-<LI>All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented).
-<LI>Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color,
-forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition of keypad
-and function keys.
-<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting
-a stack of windows with backing store, is included.
-<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting
-a uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is included.
-<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting
-data collection through on-screen forms, is included.
-<LI>Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) implementation
-are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format SVr4 curses uses.
-<LI>The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
-entries for use with less capable <STRONG>curses</STRONG>/<STRONG>terminfo</STRONG>
-versions such as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</UL>
-
-The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4:
-
-<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
-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>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
-<LI>The function <CODE>wresize()</CODE> allows you to resize windows, preserving
-their data.
-<LI>The function <CODE>use_default_colors()</CODE> allows you to
-use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
-achieving the effect of transparent colors.
-<LI>The functions <CODE>keyok()</CODE>
-and <CODE>define_key()</CODE> 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.
-<LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 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.
-<LI>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.
-<LI>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.
-<LI>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).
-<LI>The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
-ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
-AT&T extension sets.
-<LI>A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
-<LI>The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo
-entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory
-if it exists and the user has no write access to the system directory.
-This feature makes it easier for users to have personal terminfo entries
-without giving up access to the system terminfo directory.
-<LI>You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled
-descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this
-generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System V.)
-<LI>In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to
-other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to
-compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the user's
-$HOME/.terminfo directory.
-<LI>A script (<STRONG>capconvert</STRONG>) 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.
-<LI>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.
-<LI>The table-of-entries utility <STRONG>toe</STRONG> makes it easy for users to
-see exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
-<LI>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
-<CODE>#undef</CODE>.
-<LI>An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document provides
-a narrative introduction to the curses programming interface.
-</UL>
-
-<H1>State of the Package</H1>
-
-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.<P>
-
-The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications
-including (versions starting with those noted):
-<DL>
-<DT> cdk
-<DD> Curses Development Kit
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://invisible-island.net/cdk/cdk.html">http://invisible-island.net/cdk</A>.
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html">http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html</a>
-<DT> ded
-<DD> directory-editor
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://invisible-island.net/ded/ded.html">http://invisible-island.net/ded</A>.
-<DT> dialog
-<DD> the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the basis
-for similar applications on GNU/Linux.
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://invisible-island.net/dialog/dialog.html">http://invisible-island.net/dialog</A>.
-<DT> lynx
-<DD> the character-screen WWW browser
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release</A>.
-<DT> Midnight Commander
-<DD> file manager
-<br>
-<A HREF="www.gnome.org/mc/">www.gnome.org/mc/</A>.
-<DT> mutt
-<DD> mail utility
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.mutt.org">http://www.mutt.org</A>.
-<DT> ncftp
-<DD> file-transfer utility
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.ncftp.com">http://www.ncftp.com</A>.
-<DT> nvi
-<DD> New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and later.
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.bostic.com/vi/">http://www.bostic.com/vi/</A>.
-<DT> tin
-<DD> newsreader, supporting color, MIME
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.tin.org">http://www.tin.org</A>.
-<DT> taper
-<DD> tape archive utility
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/">http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/</A>.
-<DT> vh-1.6
-<DD> Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html">http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html</A>.
-</DL>
-as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
-<DL>
-<DT> minicom
-<DD> terminal emulator
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html">http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html</A>.
-<DT> vile
-<DD> vi-like-emacs
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://invisible-island.net/vile/vile.html">http://invisible-island.net/vile</A>.
-</DL>
-<P>
-
-The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs (including
-a few games).
-
-<H2>Who's Who and What's What</H2>
-
-The original developers of ncurses are <A
-HREF="mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com">Zeyd Ben-Halim</A> and
-<A HREF="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html">Eric S. Raymond</A>.
-Ongoing work is being done by
-<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
-and
-<A HREF="http://www.familiepfeifer.de/Contact.aspx?Lang=en">Jürgen Pfeifer</A>.
-<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
-acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the
-copyright on ncurses.
-Contact the current maintainers at
-<A HREF="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</A>.
-<P>
-
-To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
-<CODE>bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</CODE> containing the line:
-<PRE>
+
+<html>
+<head>
+ <meta name="generator" content=
+ "HTML Tidy for Linux/x86 (vers 6 November 2007), see www.w3.org">
+
+ <title>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</title>
+ <link rev="made" href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+ "text/html; charset=us-ascii">
+</head>
+
+<body>
+ <h1>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</h1>The ncurses (new curses)
+ library is a free software emulation of curses in System V
+ Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, supports pads and
+ color and multiple highlights and forms characters and
+ function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses
+ enhancements over BSD curses.
+
+ <p>In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
+ that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
+ keepers of Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to
+ switch over to ncurses.</p>
+
+ <p>The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It has been in
+ use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library, and
+ on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package. It should port
+ easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported
+ to OS/2 Warp!</p>
+
+ <p>The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
+ including a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1),
+ clear(1), tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool
+ captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for the library and
+ tools.</p>
+
+ <p>The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the
+ GNU distribution site <a href=
+ "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .<br>
+
+ It is also available at <a href=
+ "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+
+ <h1>Release Notes</h1>This release is designed to be upward
+ compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.8; very few applications
+ will require recompilation, depending on the platform. These are
+ the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.8 release.
+
+ <p>This is a bug-fix release, correcting a small number of urgent
+ problems in the ncurses library from the 5.8 release.</p>
+
+ <p>It also improves the Ada95 binding:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>fixes a longstanding portability problem with its use of
+ the <a href=
+ "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_fieldtype.3x">set_field_type</a>
+ function. Because that function uses variable-length argument
+ lists, its interface with gnat does not work with certain
+ platforms.</li>
+
+ <li>improves configurability and portability, particularly when
+ built separately from the main ncurses tree. The 5.8 release
+ introduced scripts which can be used to construct separate
+ tarballs for the Ada95 and ncurses examples.
+
+ <p>Those were a proof of concept. For the 5.9 release, those
+ scripts are augmented with rpm- and dpkg-scripts used in test
+ builds against a variety of gnat- and system ncurses versions
+ as old as gnat 3.15 and ncurses 5.4 (see snapshots and
+ systems tested <a href=
+ "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-Ada95.html">here</a>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>additional improvements were made for portability of the
+ ncurses examples, adding rpm- and dpkg-scripts for test-builds.
+ See <a href=
+ "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">this
+ page</a> for snapshots and other information.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h1>Features of Ncurses</h1>The ncurses package is fully
+ compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
+ documented).</li>
+
+ <li>Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard
+ mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and
+ automatic recognition of keypad and function keys.</li>
+
+ <li>An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack
+ of windows with backing store, is included.</li>
+
+ <li>An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a
+ uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is
+ included.</li>
+
+ <li>An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data
+ collection through on-screen forms, is included.</li>
+
+ <li>Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1)
+ implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format
+ SVr4 curses uses.</li>
+
+ <li>The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
+ entries for use with less capable
+ <strong>curses</strong>/<strong>terminfo</strong> versions such
+ as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</li>
+ </ul>The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over
+ SVr4:
+
+ <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, 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>
+
+ <li>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the
+ rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if your terminal has
+ an insert-character capability.</li>
+
+ <li>Ada95 and C++ bindings.</li>
+
+ <li>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and
+ FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.</li>
+
+ <li>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm
+ package.</li>
+
+ <li>The function <code>wresize</code> allows you to resize
+ windows, preserving their data.</li>
+
+ <li>The function <code>use_default_colors</code> allows you to
+ use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
+ achieving the effect of transparent colors.</li>
+
+ <li>The functions <code>keyok</code> and
+ <code>define_key</code> 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.</li>
+
+ <li>Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when
+ configured using the <code>--enable-ext-colors</code>
+ option.</li>
+
+ <li>Support for 16-color terminals, such as <em>aixterm</em>
+ and <em>modern xterm</em>.</li>
+
+ <li>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now
+ features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient
+ than either BSD's or System V's.</li>
+
+ <li>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 <code>quickch</code>
+ routine.</li>
+
+ <li>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.</li>
+
+ <li>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).</li>
+
+ <li>The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
+ ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
+ AT&T extension sets.</li>
+
+ <li>A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.</li>
+
+ <li>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.</li>
+
+ <li>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.)</li>
+
+ <li>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.</li>
+
+ <li>A script (<strong>capconvert</strong>) 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.</li>
+
+ <li>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.</li>
+
+ <li>The table-of-entries utility <strong>toe</strong> makes it
+ easy for users to see exactly what terminal types are available
+ on the system.</li>
+
+ <li>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 <code>#undef</code>.</li>
+
+ <li>An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document
+ provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming
+ interface.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h1>State of the Package</h1>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.
+
+ <p>The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of
+ applications including (versions starting with those noted):</p>
+
+ <dl>
+ <dt>cdk</dt>
+
+ <dd>Curses Development Kit<br>
+ <a href=
+ "http://invisible-island.net/cdk/">http://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
+
+ <a href=
+ "http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/">http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>ded</dt>
+
+ <dd>directory-editor<br>
+ <a href=
+ "http://invisible-island.net/ded/">http://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>dialog</dt>
+
+ <dd>the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and
+ the basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux.<br>
+ <a href=
+ "http://invisible-island.net/dialog/">http://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>lynx</dt>
+
+ <dd>the character-screen WWW browser<br>
+ <a href=
+ "http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>Midnight Commander</dt>
+
+ <dd>file manager<br>
+ <a href=
+ "http://www.midnight-commander.org/">http://www.midnight-commander.org/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>mutt</dt>
+
+ <dd>mail utility<br>
+ <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>ncftp</dt>
+
+ <dd>file-transfer utility<br>
+ <a href="http://www.ncftp.com/">http://www.ncftp.com/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>nvi</dt>
+
+ <dd>New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7
+ and later.<br>
+ <a href=
+ "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi</a><br>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt>pinfo</dt>
+
+ <dd>Lynx-like info browser. <a href=
+ "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>tin</dt>
+
+ <dd>newsreader, supporting color, MIME <a href=
+ "http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></dd>
+ </dl>as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support
+ alone:
+
+ <dl>
+ <dt>minicom</dt>
+
+ <dd>terminal emulator<br>
+ <a href=
+ "http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></dd>
+
+ <dt>vile</dt>
+
+ <dd>vi-like-emacs<br>
+ <a href=
+ "http://invisible-island.net/vile/">http://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></dd>
+ </dl>
+
+ <p>The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
+ (including a few games).</p>
+
+ <h2>Who's Who and What's What</h2>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
+ <a href="mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas Dickey</a>.
+ Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the Free Software
+ Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses. Contact the
+ current maintainers at <a href=
+ "mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</a>.
+
+ <p>To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
+ <code>bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</code> containing the line:</p>
+ <pre>
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff