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-<HTML>
-<HEAD>
-<TITLE>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</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 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://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
-
-<H1>Release Notes</H1>
-
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and 5.1;
-very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
-These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.1 release.
-<p>
-Interface changes:
-<ul>
- <li>change type of <code>ospeed</code> variable back to
- <code>short</code> to match its use in legacy applications. It was
- altered after ncurses 4.2 to <code>speed_t</code> to repair a type
- mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in 1995. The principal
- users of termcap continued to use <code>short</code>, which is
- not the same size.
- <p>
- <em>NOTE</em>: A few applications will have to be recompiled
- (about 1% of the programs in a typical Linux distribution,
- 10% of the programs that use ncurses). These are easy to
- identify with <code>nm</code> or <code>strings</code>.
-
- <li>remove a private function <code>_nc_can_clear_with()</code>, which
- was built with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used.
-
- <li>add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing
- <code>chtype</code> values in the debug library, and for better
- access and buffer limit checking.
-</ul>
-New features and improvements:
-<ul>
- <li>rewrote <code>tgoto()</code> to make it better support existing
- termcap applications which use hardcoded strings rather than obtain
- all of their information from the termcap file. If the string does
- not appear to be a terminfo string (i.e., does not refer to a "%p"
- parameter, or terminfo-style padding), and termcap support is configured, <code>tgoto()</code>
- will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as before, it will use
- <code>tparm()</code>.
-
- <li>to ensure that the <code>tgoto()</code> changes work properly,
- added checks to <code>tic</code> which report capabilities that do
- not reference the expected number of parameters.
-
- <li>new configure script options:
- <ul>
- <li>option <code>--disable-root-environ</code> adds runtime checks
- which tell ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment
- variables if the current user is root, or running setuid/setgid.
-
- <li>option <code>--disable-assumed-color</code> allows you to use the
- pre-5.1 convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be
- configured (see assume_default_colors()).
-
- <li>implement configure script options that transform installed
- program names, e.g., <code>--program-prefix</code>, including the
- manpage names and cross references.
-
- <li>option <code>--with-database</code> allows you to specify a
- different terminfo source-file to install. On OS/2 EMX, the
- default is misc/emx.src, otherwise misc/terminfo.src
-
- <li>option <code>--with-default-terminfo-dir</code> allows you to
- specify the default terminfo database directory.
-
- <li>option <code>--with-libtool</code> allows you to build with
- <code>libtool</code>. <p> <em>NOTE</em>: <code>libtool</code>
- uses a different notation for numbering shared library versions
- from the existing ncurses configuration.
-
- <li>option <code>--with-manpage-tbl</code> causes the manpages to be
- preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation,
-
- <li>option <code>--without-curses-h</code> causes the installation
- process to install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate
- changes to headers and manpages.
- </ul>
-
- <li>modified configure script options:
- <ul>
- <li>change symbol used by the <code>--install-prefix</code> configure
- option from <code>INSTALL_PREFIX</code> to <code>DESTDIR</code>
- (the latter has become common usage although the name is
- misleading).
-
- <li>modify <code>ld -rpath</code> options (e.g., Linux, and Solaris)
- to use an absolute pathname for the build tree's lib directory,
- avoiding confusion with directories relative to the current one
- with the installed programs.
-
- <li>modified <code>misc/run_tic.in</code> to use
- <code>tic -o</code>, to eliminate dependency on
- <code>$TERMINFO</code> variable for installs.
- </ul>
-
- <li>terminfo database:
- <ul>
- <li>updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch #146.
-
- <li>added amiga-vnc,
- Matrix Orbital, and
- QNX qansi to misc/terminfo.src.
-
- <li>added os2 entry to misc/emx.src.
-
- <li>add S0 and E0 extensions to <code>screen</code>'s terminfo entry
- since otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents
- to <code>tgoto</code>, which would be misinterpreted by older
- versions of ncurses.
- </ul>
-
- <li>improvements to program usability:
- <ul>
- <li>modify programs to use <code>curses_version()</code> string to
- report the version of ncurses with which they are compiled rather
- than the NCURSES_VERSION string. The function returns the patch
- level in addition to the major and minor version numbers.
-
- <li>modify <code>tput</code> program so it can be renamed or invoked via a link as
- 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as <code>tput reset</code> or <code>tput init</code>.
-
- <li>add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure that
- the option value is indeed a number.
- </ul>
-
- <li>improved performance:
- <ul>
- <li>replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode
- <code>no_color_video</code> with a logic expression which is faster.
- </ul>
-
-</ul>
-Major bug fixes:
-<ul>
- <li>correct <code>manlinks.sed</code> script introduced in ncurses 5.1
- to avoid using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions
- of <code>sed</code>. This happens to work with GNU <code>sed</code>,
- but is not portable, and was the initial motivation for this release.
-
- <li>remove "hpux10.*" case from CF_SHARED_OPTS configure script macro.
- This differed from the "hpux*" case by using reversed symbolic
- links, which made the 5.1 version not match the configuration of
- 5.0 shared libraries.
-
- <li>guard against corrupt terminfo data:
- <ul>
- <li>modify <code>tparm()</code> to disallow arithmetic on strings,
- analyze the varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as
- numbers.
-
- <li>modify <code>tparm()</code>'s internal function
- <code>spop()</code> to treat a null pointer as an empty string.
-
- <li>modify <code>parse_format()</code> in lib_tparm.c to ignore
- precision if it is longer than 10000.
-
- <li>rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions
- <code>_nc_safe_strcat()</code>, etc. Made other related changes to
- check lengths used for <code>strcat()</code> and
- <code>strcpy()</code>.
- </ul>
-
- <li>corrections to screen optimization:
- <ul>
- <li>added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and
- standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined.
-
- <li>change handling of <code>non_dest_scroll_region</code> in
- tty_update.c to clear text after it is shifted in rather than before
- shifting out. Also correct row computation.
-
- <li>modify <code>rs2</code> capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries
- where cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting video
- attributes. The cursor restore would undo that.
- </ul>
-
- <li>UTF-8 support:
- <ul>
- <li>when checking LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables
- for UTF-8 locale, ignore those which are set to an empty value, as
- per SUSV2.
-
- <li>encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2.
-
- <li>modify <code>_nc_utf8_outch()</code> to avoid sign-extension when
- checking for out-of-range value.
- </ul>
-
- <li>other library fixes:
- <ul>
- <li>added checks for an empty <code>$HOME</code> environment
- variable, to avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from
- <code>./.terminfo</code> .
-
- <li>change functions <code>_nc_parse_entry()</code> and
- <code>postprocess_termcap()</code> to avoid using
- <code>strtok()</code>, because it is non-reentrant.
-
- <li>initialize <code>fds[]</code> array to 0's in
- <code>_nc_timed_wait()</code>; apparently <code>poll()</code> only
- sets the <code>revents</code> members of that array when there is
- activity corresponding to the related file.
-
- <li>add a check for null pointer in <code>Make_Enum_Type()</code>.
-
- <li>fix a heap problem with the c++ binding.
-
- <li>correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places,
- including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we use
- the <code>-fno-builtin</code> option.
- </ul>
-
- <li>several fixes for tic:
- <ul>
- <li>add a check for empty buffers returned by <code>fgets()</code> in
- comp_scan.c <code>next_char()</code> function, in case
- <code>tic</code> is run on a non-text file (fixes a core dump).
-
- <li>modify <code>tic</code> to verify that its inputs are really files,
- in case someone tries to read a directory (or
- <code>/dev/zero</code>).
-
- <li>correct an uninitialized parameter to <code>open_tempfile()</code>
- in tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message about
- <code>tmpnam</code>.
-
- <li>correct logic in <code>adjust_cancels()</code>, which did not check
- both alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between
- boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in
- <code>tic</code>.
- </ul>
-
- <li>using new checks in <code>tic</code> for parameter counts in
- capability strings, found/fixed several errors both in the
- terminfo database and in the include/Caps file.
- <ul>
- <li>modified several terminfo capability strings, including the
- definitions for setaf, setab, in include/Caps to indicate that the
- entries are parameterized. This information is used to tell which
- strings are translated when converting to termcap. This fixes a
- problem where the generated termcap would contain a spurious "%p1"
- for the terminfo "%p1%d".
-
- <li>correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as some
- printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd, smgtp, smglp.
- </ul>
-
- <li>various fixes for install scripts used to support configure
- <code>--srcdir</code> and <code>--with-install-prefix</code>.
-
- <li>correct several mismatches between manpage filename and ".TH"
- directives, renaming dft_fgbg.3x to default_colors.3x and
- menu_attribs.3x to menu_attributes.3x.
-</ul>
-
-Portability:
-<ul>
- <li>configure script:
- <ul>
- <li>newer config.guess, config.sub, including changes to support OS/2
- EMX. The configure script for OS/2 EMX still relies on a patch
- since there is no (working) support for that platform in the main
- autoconf distribution.
-
- <li>make configure script checks on variables <code>$GCC</code> and
- <code>$GXX</code> consistently compare against 'yes' rather than
- test if they are nonnull, since either may be set to the
- corresponding name of the C or C++ compiler.
-
- <li>change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather than
- AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that <code>configure --target</code>
- will set a default program-prefix.
-
- <li>modify the check for big-core to force a couple of memory
- accesses, which may work as needed for older/less-capable machines
- (if not, there's still the explicit configure option).
-
- <li>modify configure test for <code>tcgetattr()</code> to allow for
- old implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a
- macro.
-
- <li>add configure check for filesystems (such as OS/2 EMX) which do
- not distinguish between upper/lowercase filenames, use this to fix
- tags rules in makefiles.
-
- <li>add MKncurses_def.sh to generate fallback definitions for
- ncurses_cfg.h, to quiet gcc -Wundef warnings, modified ifdef's in
- code to consistently use "#if" rather than "#ifdef".
-
- <li>change most remaining unquoted parameters of <code>test</code> in
- configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem in the
- <code>--disable-database</code> option.
-
- <li>modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX.
-
- <li>modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on
- OS/2 EMX.
- </ul>
-
- <li>library:
- <ul>
- <li>replaced case-statement in <code>_nc_tracebits()</code> for CSIZE
- with a table to simplify working around implementations that define
- random combinations of the related macros to zero.
-
- <li>improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse if code
- fails to set up a 3-button mouse.
-
- <li>added private entrypoint <code>_nc_basename()</code>, used to
- consolidate related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX
- pathnames.
-
- <li>alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty.
-
- <li>redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to have
- an (unspecified) symbol conflict.
- </ul>
-
- <li>programs:
- <ul>
- <li>modified progs/tset.c and tack/sysdep.c to build with sgttyb
- interface if neither termio or termios is available. Tested this
- with FreeBSD 2.1.5 (which does have termios - but the sgttyb does
- work).
- </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://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html">http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html</a>
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html">http://dickey.his.com/cdk</A>.
-<DT> ded
-<DD> directory-editor
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html">http://dickey.his.com/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://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html">http://dickey.his.com/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 4.1
-<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://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html">http://dickey.his.com/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="mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net">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>
subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
-</PRE>
-
-This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and
-testing of this package.<P>
-
-Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made available at
-<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
-
-<H2>Future Plans</H2>
-<UL>
-<LI>Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization support.
-<LI>Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
-</UL>
-We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in working
-on them, please join the ncurses list.
-
-<H2>Other Related Resources</H2>
-
-The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format
-terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond.
-<A HREF="http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo">http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo</A>.<P>
-
-You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
-not covered in the terminfo file at
-<A HREF="http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html">Richard Shuford's
-archive</A>.
-</BODY>
-</HTML>
-<!--
-# The following sets edit modes for GNU EMACS
-# Local Variables:
-# mode:html
-# case-fold-search:nil
-# fill-column:70
-# End:
--->
+</pre>
+
+ <p>This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
+ development and testing of this package.</p>
+
+ <p>Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release
+ are made available at <a href=
+ "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+
+ <p>There is an archive of the mailing list here:</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses">http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses</a>
+ (also <a href=
+ "https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses">https</a>)</p>
+
+ <h2>Future Plans</h2>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization
+ support.</li>
+
+ <li>Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.</li>
+ </ul>We need people to help with these projects. If you are
+ interested in working on them, please join the ncurses list.
+
+ <h2>Other Related Resources</h2>The distribution provides a newer
+ version of the terminfo-format 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, 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 <a href=
+ "http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal">
+ Richard Shuford's archive</a> .</p>
+</body>
+</html>
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff