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-<HTML>
-<HEAD>
-<TITLE>Announcing ncurses 5.7</TITLE>
-<link rev=made href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
-</HEAD>
-<BODY>
-
-<H1>Announcing ncurses 5.7</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>
-
-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/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> .
-
-<H1>Release Notes</H1>
-
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.6;
-very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
-These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.6 release.
-<p>
-Interface changes:
-<ul>
- <li>generate linkable stubs for some macros:
- <br>
- getattrs
-
-</ul>
-New features and improvements:
-<ul>
- <li>library
- <ul>
- <li>new flavor of the ncurses library provides rudimentary
- support for POSIX threads. Several functions are
- reentrant, but most require either a window-level or
- screen-level mutex.<br>
- (This is <em>API</em>-compatible,
- but not <em>ABI</em>-compatible with the normal library).
-
- <li>add <code>NCURSES_OPAQUE</code> symbol to curses.h, will
- use to make structs opaque in selected configurations.
-
- <li>add <code>NCURSES_EXT_FUNCS</code> and
- <code>NCURSES_EXT_COLORS</code> symbols to curses.h to make
- it simpler to tell if the extended functions and/or colors
- are declared.
-
- <li>add wresize() to C++ binding
-
- <li>eliminate fixed-buffer vsprintf() calls in C++ binding.
-
- <li>add several functions to C++ binding which wrap C functions
- that pass a WINDOW* parameter.
-
- <li>adapt mouse-handling code from menu library in form-library
-
- <li>improve tracing for form library, showing created forms,
- fields, etc.
-
- <li>make $NCURSES_NO_PADDING feature work for termcap interface .
-
- <li>add check to trace-file open, if the given name is a
- directory, add ".log" to the name and try again.
-
- <li>several new manpages: curs_legacy.3x, curs_memleaks.3x,
- curs_opaque.3x and curs_threads.3x
- </ul>
-
- <li>programs:
- <ul>
- <li>modified three test-programs to demonstrate the threading
- support in this version: ditto, rain, worm.
-
- <li>several new test-programs: demo_panels, dots_mvcur,
- inch_wide, inchs, key_name, key_names, savescreen,
- savescreen.sh test_arrays, test_get_wstr, test_getstr,
- test_instr, test_inwstr and test_opaque.
-
- <li>add <code>adacurses-config</code> to the Ada95 install.
-
- <li>modify tic <code>-f</code> option to format spaces as
- <code>\s</code> to prevent them from being lost when that
- is read back in unformatted strings.
-
- <li>The <code>tack</code> program is now distributed separately
- from ncurses.
- </ul>
-
- <li>terminal database
- <ul>
- <li>added entries:
- <ul>
- <li><code>Eterm-256color</code>,
- <code>Eterm-88color</code> and
- <code>rxvt-88color</code>
- <li><code>aterm</code>
- <li><code>konsole-256color</code>
- <li><code>mrxvt</code>
- <li><code>screen.mlterm</code>
- <li><code>screen.rxvt</code>
- <li><code>teraterm4.59</code> is now the primary primary
- teraterm entry, renamed original to
- <code>teraterm2.3</code>
- <li><code>9term</code> terminal
- <li>Newbury Data entries
- </ul>
- <li>updated/improved entries:
- <ul>
- <li><code>gnome</code> to version 2.22.3
- <li><code>h19</code>, <code>z100</code>
- <li><code>konsole</code> to version 1.6.6
- <li><code>mlterm</code>, <code>mlterm+pcfkeys</code>
- <li><code>xterm</code>, and building-blocks for function-keys
- to <a href="http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_230">xterm patch #230</a>.
- </ul>
- </ul>
-</ul>
-Major bug fixes:
-<ul>
- <li>add logic to tic for cancelling strings in user-defined
- capabilities
- (this is <em>needed</em> for
- current <code>konsole</code> terminfo entry).
-
- <li>modify <code>mk-1st.awk</code> so the generated makefile rules for
- linking or installing shared libraries do not first remove the
- library, in case it is in use, e.g., <code>libncurses.so</code> by
- <code>/bin/sh</code>.
-
- <li>correct check for notimeout() in wgetch().
-
- <li>fix a sign-extension bug in infocmp's repair_acsc() function.
-
- <li>change winnstr() to stop at the end of the line.
-
- <li>make Ada95 demo_panels() example work.
-
- <li>fix for adding a non-spacing character at the beginning of a line.
-
- <li>fill in extended-color pair to make colors work
- for wide-characters using extended-colors.
-
- <li>improve refresh of window on top of multi-column characters,
- taking into account split characters on left/right window
- boundaries.
-
- <li>modify <code>win_wchnstr()</code> to ensure that only a base cell
- is returned for each multi-column character.
-
- <li>improve <code>waddch()</code> and <code>winsch()</code> handling of
- EILSEQ from <code>mbrtowc()</code> by using <code>unctrl()</code>
- to display illegal bytes rather than trying to append further bytes
- to make up a valid sequence.
-
- <li>restore <code>curs_set()</code> state after
- <code>endwin()</code>/<code>refresh()</code>
-
- <li>modify <code>keyname()</code> to use "^X" form only if
- <code>meta()</code> has been called, or if <code>keyname()</code>
- is called without initializing curses, e.g., via
- <code>initscr()</code> or <code>newterm()</code>.
-
- <li>modify <code>unctrl()</code> to check codes in 128-255 range versus
- <code>isprint()</code>.
- If they are not printable, and locale was set, use a "M-" or "~"
- sequence.
-
- <li>improve <code>resizeterm()</code> by moving ripped-off lines, and
- repainting the soft-keys.
-
- <li>modify form library to accept control characters such as newline
- in set_field_buffer(), which is compatible with Solaris.
-
- <li>use <code>NCURSES_MOUSE_MASK()</code> in definition of
- <code>BUTTON_RELEASE()</code>, etc., to make those work properly
- with the <code>--enable-ext-mouse</code> configuration
-
- <li>correct some functions in Ada95 binding which were using return
- value from C where none was returned.
-
- <li>reviewed/fixed issues reported by Coverity and Klocwork tools.
-</ul>
-
-Portability:
-<ul>
- <li>configure script:
- <ul>
- <li>new options:
- <dl>
-
- <dt>--disable-big-strings
- <dd>control whether static string tables are generated as single
- large strings (to improve startup performance), or as array
- of individual strings.
-
- <dt>--disable-relink
- <dd>control whether shared libraries are relinked (during install)
- when rpath is enabled.
-
- <dt>--disable-tic-depends
- <dd>make explicit whether tic library depends on ncurses/ncursesw
- library.
-
- <dt>--enable-mixed-case
- <dd>override the configure script's check if the filesystem
- supports mixed-case filenames.
- This allows one to control how the terminal database
- maps to the filesystem.
- For filesystems that do not support mixed-case, the library
- uses generate 2-character (hexadecimal) codes for the
- lower-level of the filesystem terminfo database
-
- <dt>--enable-reentrant
- <dd>builds a different flavor of the ncurses library (ncursest)
- which improves reentrant use of the
- library by reducing global and static variables
- (see the "--with-pthread" option for the threaded support).
-
- <dt>--enable-weak-symbols
- <dd>use weak-symbols for linking to the POSIX thread library,
- and use the same soname for the ncurses shared library
- as the normal library (caveat: the ABI is for the threaded
- library, which makes global data accessed via functions).
-
- <dt>--with-pthread
- <dd>build with the POSIX thread library (tested with AIX,
- Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, HPUX, IRIX64, Solaris, Tru64).
-
- <dt>--with-ticlib
- <dd>build/install the tic-support functions in a separate library
-
- </dl>
-
- <li>improved options:
- <dl>
-
- <dt>--enable-ext-colors
- <dd>requires the wide-character configuration.
-
- <dt>--with-chtype
- <dd>ignore option value "unsigned" is always added to
- the type in curses.h; do the same for --with-mmask-t.
-
- <dt>--with-dmalloc
- <dd>build-fix for redefinition of <code>strndup</code>.
-
- <dt>--with-hashed-db
- <dd>accepts a parameter which is the install-prefix of a given
- Berkeley Database.
-
- <dt>--with-hashed-db
- <dd>the $LIBS environment variable overrides the search for the db
- library.
-
- <dt>--without-hashed-db
- <dd>assumed when "--disable-database" is used.
-
- </dl>
-
- </ul>
-
- <li>other configure/build issues:
- <ul>
- <li>build-fixes for LynxOS
- <li>modify shared-library rules to allow FreeBSD 3.x to use rpath.
- <li>build-fix for FreeBSD "contemporary" TTY interface.
- <li>build-fixes for AIX with libtool.
- <li>build-fixes for Darwin and libtool.
- <li>modify BeOS-specific ifdef's to build on Haiku.
- <li>corrected gcc options for building shared libraries on Solaris
- and IRIX64.
- <li>change shared-library configuration for OpenBSD, make rpath work.
- <li>build-fixes for using libutf8, e.g., on OpenBSD 3.7
- <li>add "-e" option in ncurses/Makefile.in when generating source-files
- to force earlier exit if the build environment fails unexpectedly.
- <li>add support for shared libraries for QNX.
- <li>change delimiter in <code>MKlib_gen.sh</code> from '%' to '@', to
- avoid substitution by IBM xlc to '#' as part of its extensions to
- digraphs.
- </ul>
-
- <li>library:
- <ul>
- <li>rewrite wrapper for <code>wcrtomb()</code>, making it work on
- Solaris. This is used in the form library to determine the length
- of the buffer needed by <code>field_buffer</code>.
- <li>add/use configure script macro CF_SIG_ATOMIC_T, use the corresponding
- type for data manipulated by signal handlers.
- <li>set locale in misc/ncurses-config.in since it uses a range
- <li>disable GPM mouse support when $TERM does not happen to contain
- "linux", since Gpm_Open() no longer limits its assertion to terminals
- that it might handle, e.g., within "screen" in xterm.
- <li>reset mouse file-descriptor when unloading GPM library.
- </ul>
-
- <li>test programs:
- <ul>
- <li>update test programs to build/work with various UNIX curses for
- comparisons.
- </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,
-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 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.
-<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 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when configured
-using the <code>--enable-ext-colors</code> option.
-<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.
-<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/">http://invisible-island.net/cdk/</A>
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/">http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/</a>
-<DT> ded
-<DD> directory-editor
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://invisible-island.net/ded/">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/">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="http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/">http://www.ibiblio.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>
-<br>
-<DT> pinfo
-<DD> Lynx-like info browser.
-<A HREF="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/</A>
-<DT> tin
-<DD> newsreader, supporting color, MIME
-<A HREF="http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</A>
-</DL>
-as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
-<DL>
-<DT> minicom
-<DD> terminal emulator
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">
-http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</A>
-<DT> vile
-<DD> vi-like-emacs
-<br>
-<A HREF="http://invisible-island.net/vile/">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>
-
-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:
-<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://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/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 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://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html">Richard Shuford's
-archive</A> .
-</BODY>
-</HTML>
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+ <meta name="generator" content=
+ "HTML Tidy for HTML5 for Linux version 5.6.0">
+ <title>Announcing ncurses 6.3</title>
+ <link rel="author" href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+ "text/html; charset=us-ascii">
+ <style type="text/css">
+ p,li { max-width:700px; }
+ dd { max-width:630px; }
+ *.main-name {
+ font-style: italic;
+ font-variant: small-caps;
+ }
+ *.part-name {
+ font-family: "Andale Mono", "Monotype.com", monospace;
+ font-size: 12pt;
+ font-weight: bold;
+ }
+ *.demo-name {
+ font-family: "Andale Mono", "Monotype.com", monospace;
+ font-size: 10pt;
+ }
+ </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+ <h1 class="no-header">Announcing ncurses 6.3</h1>
+
+ <h2><a name="h2-overview" id="h2-overview">Overview</a></h2>
+
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> (new curses)
+ library is a free software emulation of curses in System V
+ Release 4.0 (SVr4), 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 SVr4-curses
+ enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of
+ X/Open Curses.</p>
+
+ <p>In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
+ that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
+ keepers of <span class="main-name">unix</span> releases such as
+ BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span>.</p>
+
+ <p>Since 1995, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> has been
+ ported to many systems:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>It is used in almost every system based on the Linux kernel
+ (aside from some embedded applications).</li>
+
+ <li>It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD
+ and MacOS.</li>
+
+ <li>It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The
+ first of these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.</li>
+
+ <li>It is used (though usually not as the <em>system</em>
+ curses) on all of the vendor <span class=
+ "main-name">unix</span> systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO,
+ Solaris, Tru64.</li>
+
+ <li>It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming
+ <span class="main-name">unix</span>.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
+ including</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">captoinfo</span></a>, a termcap conversion
+ tool</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">clear</span></a>, utility for clearing the
+ screen</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">infocmp</span></a>, the terminfo decompiler</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">tabs</span></a>, set tabs on a terminal</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span></a>, the terminfo compiler</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">toe</span></a>, list (table of) terminfo
+ entries</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">tput</span></a>, utility for retrieving terminal
+ capabilities in shell scripts</li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span></a>, to initialize the terminal</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.</p>
+
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution is
+ available at <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>' <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">homepage</a>:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><a href=
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>
+ or<br>
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution
+ site</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><a href=
+ "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <h2><a name="h2-release-notes" id="h2-release-notes">Release
+ Notes</a></h2>
+
+ <p>These notes are for <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ 6.3, released <strong>October 21, 2021</strong>.</p>
+
+ <p>This release is designed to be source-compatible with
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 5.0 through 6.2; providing
+ extensions to the application binary interface (ABI). Although
+ the source can still be configured to support the <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> 5 ABI, the reason for the release is
+ to reflect improvements to the <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> 6 ABI and the supporting utility
+ programs.</p>
+
+ <p>There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in
+ this announcement.</p>
+
+ <p>The most <a href="#h3-bug-fixes">important
+ bug-fixes/improvements</a> dealt with portability issues. The
+ release notes also mention some other bug-fixes, but are focused
+ on new features and improvements to existing features since
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 6.2 release.</p>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library improvements</a></h3>
+
+ <h4><a name="h4-new-library" id="h4-new-library">New features</a></h4>
+
+ <p>There are a few new features:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>A new (experimental) driver, for the Windows Terminal
+ configuration is provided.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>A script is provided which enables <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-openbsd.html">OpenBSD</a> users to
+ upgrade their system to use ncurses 6.3 (OpenBSD developers
+ are also invited to do this).</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and
+ extensions) are provided in this release:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify lib_mouse.c to check for out-of-range button
+ numbers, convert those to position reports.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add sp-funcs for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_termattrs.3x.html#h3-erasechar_-erasewchar">
+ erasewchar</a>, <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_termattrs.3x.html#h3-killchar_-killwchar">
+ killwchar</a>.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h4><a name="h4-fixes-library" id="h4-fixes-library">Other
+ improvements</a></h4>
+
+ <p>These are revised features:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>modify wgetnstr, wgetn_wstr to improve compatibility with
+ SVr4 curses in its treatment of interrupt and quit
+ characters</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>mark wgetch-events feature as deprecated.</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>prevent <tt>KEY_EVENT</tt> from appearing in
+ <tt>curses.h</tt> unless the configure option
+ <code>--enable-wgetch-events</code> is used.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <tt>MKkey_defs.sh</tt> to hide ncurses'
+ definition of <tt>KEY_EVENTS</tt> to reduce <em>Visual
+ Studio C++</em> redefinition warnings.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>reduce build-warnings by excluding ncurses-internals from
+ deprecation warnings.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>These are improvements to existing features:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>drop symbols <em>GCC_PRINTF</em> and <em>GCC_SCANF</em>
+ from <curses.h>, to simplify use.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>apply gcc format attribute to prototypes which use a
+ va_list parameter rather than a “<tt>...</tt>”
+ variable-length parameter list.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <term.h> so that it is not necessary to
+ include <curses.h> before <term.h>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>provide for wide-characters as background character in
+ wbkgrnd</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve parameter-checking for tparm, adding function
+ _nc_tiparm() to handle the most-used case, which accepts only
+ numeric parameters.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>use return-value from <em>vsnprintf</em> to reallocate as
+ needed to allow for buffers larger than the screen size.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add another <em>fflush(stdout)</em> in <em>_nc_flush</em>
+ to handle time-delays in the middle of strings such as flash
+ when the application uses low-level calls rather than
+ curses.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>These are corrections to existing features:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>add a check to guard against <em>repeat_char</em> emitting
+ digits which could be interpreted as BSD-style padding when
+ <tt>--enable-bsdpad</tt> is configured.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>check for screen size-change in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_scr_dump.3x.html">scr_init</a> and
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_scr_dump.3x.html">scr_restore</a>, in
+ case a screen dump does not match the current screen
+ dimensions</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
+ improvements</a></h3>
+
+ <p id="h4-utilities">Several improvements were made to the
+ utility programs:</p>
+
+ <dl>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tabs.1.html">tabs</a></span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>implement “<tt>+m</tt>” option</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a></span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>add check for duplicate “<tt>use=</tt>”
+ clauses.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add check to report instances where <tt>tparm</tt>
+ would detect an error in an expression.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add user-defined capabilities from <em>mintty</em> to
+ <tt>Caps-ncurses</tt>, for checking consistency.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve warning when oc/op do not mention SGR 39/49
+ for <em>xterm</em> compatible <code>XT</code> flag.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve checks for number of parameters of
+ <code>smglp</code>, <code>smgrp</code>,
+ <code>smgtp</code>, and <code>smgbp</code>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve “<tt>-c</tt>” option to validate
+ the number and type of parameters and compare against
+ expected number/type before deciding which set of
+ parameter-lists to use in tparm calls.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve check for errors detected in
+ <code>tparm</code>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve format of output, to ensure that the messages
+ contain only printable text.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify to eliminate unnecessary
+ “<code>\</code>” to escape
+ “<code>:</code>” in terminfo format.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>remove check that assumes that none or both
+ parameterized and non-parameterized margin-setting
+ capabilities are present.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html">toe</a></span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify output of “<tt>toe -as</tt>” to
+ show first description found rather than the last.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add a check to ensure that a “termcap
+ file” is text rather than binary.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html">tput</a></span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify to allow multiple commands per line.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve parameter-checking by analyzing all extended
+ string capabilities, e.g., as used in the <code>Cs</code>
+ and <code>Ms</code> capabilities of the <em>tmux</em>
+ description.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>make warning messages consistently using alias names
+ when those are used, rather than the underlying program's
+ name.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve usage message for aliases such as
+ <em>clear</em>, by eliminating <em>tput</em>-specific
+ portions.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify initialization to avoid opening
+ <tt>/dev/tty</tt> for cases other than
+ <em>reset/init</em>, e.g., for <em>clear</em>.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+
+ <h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
+
+ <p>Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made
+ to the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>. Most of
+ this activity aimed at improving the test-packages. A few changes
+ are more generally useful, e.g., for the main ncurses
+ test-program, and for analyzing traces using the
+ <em>tracemunch</em> script:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>add “<tt>-r</tt>” option to the <em>dots</em>
+ test-programs, to help with scripting a performance
+ comparison.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>build-fix for <em>test_opaque</em>, for configurations
+ without opaque curses structs, e.g., ncurses 5.7.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve <em>tracemunch</em> logic for "RUN"
+ compaction.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve <em>tracemunch</em>'s coverage of form/menu/panel
+ libraries.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve <em>tracemunch</em>'s checking/reporting the type
+ for the first parameter, e.g., "WINDOW*" rather than
+ "#1".</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <em>tracemunch</em> and the panel library to show
+ readable traces for panel- and user-pointers.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>There are other new demo/test programs and reusable
+ examples:</p>
+
+ <dl>
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><em>back_ground</em></span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>to exercise the wide-character background functions.</dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><em>move_field</em></span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>to demonstrate <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_field.3x.html">move_field</a>, and a stub
+ for a corresponding demo of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_field_new.3x.html">dup_field</a>.</dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name"><em>test_tparm</em></span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>for checking <em>tparm</em> changes.</dd>
+ </dl>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal database</a></h3>
+
+ <p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
+
+ <blockquote style="word-break:keep-all">
+ <p><tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-absolute">absolute</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-att610_cvis">att610+cvis</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-foot">foot</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-foot-direct">foot-direct</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-hp98550-color">hp98550-color</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-hpterm-color2">hpterm-color2</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-hterm">hterm</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-hterm-256color">hterm-256color</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux-s">linux-s</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty_keypad">putty+keypad</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty_screen">putty+screen</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty-screen">putty-screen</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-screen.linux-s">screen.linux-s</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-scrt/securecrt">scrt/securecrt</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tmux-direct">tmux-direct</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_cvis">vt220+cvis</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_cvis8">vt220+cvis8</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_pcedit">vt220+pcedit</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_vtedit">vt220+vtedit</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220-base">vt220-base</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt52_keypad">vt52+keypad</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_256color2">xterm+256color2</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_88color2">xterm+88color2</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-direct16">xterm-direct16</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-direct256">xterm-direct256</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_nofkeys">xterm+nofkeys</a></tt>,
+ and <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_nopcfkeys">xterm+nopcfkeys</a></tt>.</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
+ were updates to several descriptions:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>correct use-ordering in some <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-direct">xterm-direct</a>
+ flavors</li>
+
+ <li>fix some sgr inconsistencies in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-d230c">d230c</a>, <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ibm6153">ibm6153</a>,
+ <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ibm6154">ibm6154</a>,
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ncrvt100an">ncrvt100an</a></li>
+
+ <li>improve <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt50h">vt50h</a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt52">vt52</a> based on
+ DECScope manual</li>
+
+ <li>use <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-hp_arrows">hp+arrows</a> in a
+ few places</li>
+
+ <li>use <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-hp_pfk-cr">hp+pfk-cr</a> in a
+ few places</li>
+
+ <li>use <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220_cvis">vt220+cvis</a> in
+ <tt>st</tt>, <tt>terminology</tt>, <tt>termite</tt> since they
+ ignore blinking-cursor detail in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-att610_cvis">att610+cvis</a></li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>while others affected specific descriptions. These were
+ retested, to take into account changes by their developers:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-kitty_common">kitty+common</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-mlterm3">mlterm3</a></tt>,
+ <tt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ms-terminal">ms-terminal</a></tt></p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>while these are specific fixes based on reviewing
+ documentation, user reports, or warnings from <span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span>:</p>
+
+ <dl>
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-aaa_dec">aaa+dec</a>,
+ aaa+rv</dt>
+
+ <dd>correct rmacs/smacs</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-aaa_rv">aaa+rv</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>correct sgr</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-icl6404">icl6404</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>correct csr</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-kitty">kitty</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>use att610+cvis, xterm+tmux and ansi+enq</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-konsole-base">konsole-base</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>re-enable "bel"</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux2.6">linux2.6</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>fix pound-sign mapping in acsc</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux3.0">linux3.0</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>modify to reflect default mapping of shift-tab by kbd
+ 1.14</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-pccons">pccons</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>fill in some missing pieces, to make it comparable to the
+ vt220 entry</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-putty">putty</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>use vt100+fnkeys, add rep</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-screen">screen</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>use vt100+enq</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-terminator">terminator</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>corrected tsl capability</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ti916">ti916</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>correct cup</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-tmux">tmux</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>change kbs to ^?</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt220">vt220</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>use vt220+cvis</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt420_lrmm">vt420+lrmm</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>add smglp and smgrp</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-vt420">vt420</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>use vt420+lrmm</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-new">xterm-new</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>add nel</dd>
+
+ <dt><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm-vt52">xterm-vt52</a>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>use vt52+keypad</dd>
+ </dl>
+
+ <p>A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
+ capabilities):</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>add shifted Linux console keys in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux_sfkeys">linux+sfkeys</a>
+ entry for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-screen.linux">screen.linux</a></li>
+
+ <li>add Smulx to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-alacritty">alacritty</a></li>
+
+ <li>add kbeg to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_keypad">xterm+keypad</a>
+ to accommodate termcap applications</li>
+
+ <li>add extensions in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_tmux">xterm+tmux</a>
+ and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ecma_strikeout">ecma+strikeout</a>
+ to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ms-terminal">ms-terminal</a>,
+ but cancel the non-working Cr and Ms capabilities</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
+ "h3-documentation">Documentation</a></h3>
+
+ <p>As usual, this release</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>improves documentation by describing new features,</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>attempts to improve the description of features which
+ users have found confusing</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were
+ described in the <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html">NEWS</a> file
+ but treated sketchily in manual pages.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>In addition to providing background information to explain
+ these features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
+ clarifications, etc.:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>Corrections:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>make <em>opts</em> extension for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getcchar.3x.html#h3-getcchar"><tt>getcchar</tt></a>
+ work as documented for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/announce-6.1.htmll#h4-new-library">ncurses
+ 6.1</a>, adding “<tt>-g</tt>” flag to
+ <em>demo_new_pair</em> to illustrate.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>
+ “-q” option to refrain from modifying
+ terminal modes, to match the documentation.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>New/improved history and portability sections:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>improve documentation for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Parameterized-Strings">
+ tparm</a> and static/dynamic variables.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add history note to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_scanw.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">curs_scanw.3x</a>
+ for <stdarg.h> and <varargs.h></p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add history note to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_printw.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">curs_printw.3x</a>
+ for <stdarg.h> and <varargs.h></p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add portability note to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-Header-files">ncurses.3x</a>
+ regarding <stdarg.h></p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add historical notes to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html#h2-HISTORY">tput</a>,
+ <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">
+ curses-terminfo</a> and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">curses-color</a>
+ manpages based on source-code for SVr2, SVr3 and
+ SVr4.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve history section for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html#h2-HISTORY">tset</a> manpage
+ based on the 1BSD tarball, which preceded BSD's SCCS
+ checkins by more than three years.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Other improvements:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>explain in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h2-ALTERNATE-CONFIGURATIONS">
+ ncurses.3x</a> that functions in the tinfo library do not
+ rely upon wide-characters.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve manual page for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/panel.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">panel</a>
+ library, extending the portability section as well as
+ documenting error-returns.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add section on margins to <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Margins">terminfo.5</a>,
+ adapted from X/Open Curses.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/term.5.html#h3-LEGACY-STORAGE-FORMAT">man/term.5</a>
+ section on legacy storage format.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add a note in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Predefined-Capabilities">
+ terminfo.5</a> explaining that no-parameter strings such
+ as <em><tt>sgr0</tt></em> or <em><tt>cnorm</tt></em>
+ should not be used with tparm.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve description of BSD-style padding in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_termcap.3x.html#h2-BUGS">curs_termcap.3x</a></p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve discussion of padding versus <tt>tparm</tt>
+ and <tt>tputs</tt> in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Formatting-Output">
+ man/curs_terminfo.3x</a></p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>add a note in manual page to explain <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getch.3x.html#h3-Ungetting-characters">
+ ungetch</a> vs <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_get_wch.3x.html#h3-unget_wch">unget_wch</a>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve description of error-returns in <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h2-RETURN-VALUE">waddch</a>
+ and <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_addstr.3x.html#h2-RETURN-VALUE">waddnstr</a>
+ manual pages.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates
+ are to existing pages).</p>
+
+ <p>Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way
+ the information is presented. For instance, hyphenation is
+ suppressed in the HTML files generated from manual pages because
+ an upgrade to <em>groff</em> gave noticeably poorer results,
+ interfering with the process of creating links between the
+ resulting webpages.</p>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
+ bug-fixes</a></h3>
+
+ <p>While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses
+ 6.3, only a few (the reason for this release) were both important
+ and interesting. Most of the bug-fixes were for local issues
+ which did not affect compatibility across releases. Since those
+ are detailed in the <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20211018">NEWS</a> file no elaboration is
+ needed here.</p>
+
+ <p>The interesting bugs were:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_bkgd.3x.html#h3-bkgd">wbkgd</a> and
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_bkgrnd.3x.html#h3-bkgrnd">wbkgrnd</a> to
+ avoid storing a null in the background character, because it
+ may be used in cases where the corresponding 0x80 is not
+ treated as a null.</p>
+
+ <p>This was a regression introduced in ncurses 6.2 (<a href=
+ "https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2020-03/msg00000.html">reported</a>
+ on the mailing list), for which the workaround was to specify
+ a blank for the background character.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>remove output-related checks for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_outopts.3x.html">nl/nonl</a> (also
+ <a href=
+ "https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2020-09/msg00018.html">
+ reported</a> on the mailing list).</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>improve tparm implementation of <tt>%P</tt> and
+ <tt>%g</tt>, more closely matching SVr4 terminfo. Those
+ denote <em>static</em> and <em>dynamic</em> variables in
+ terminfo expressions.</p>
+
+ <p>Exactly what those terms meant was never documented before
+ in any implementation of curses, aside from source code.
+ Unlike the other two fixes, the problem was discovered while
+ studying OpenBSD's version of <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-openbsd.html#issue_tput">tset</a>.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
+ "h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>
+
+ <h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
+ changes</a></h4>
+
+ <p>There are no major changes. Several new options were added to
+ ease integration of packages with systems using different
+ versions of <em>GNAT</em> and <em>ncurses</em>. Also,
+ improvements were made to configure checks.</p>
+
+ <h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
+ "h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>
+
+ <p>There are a few new/modified configure options:</p>
+
+ <dl>
+ <dt><tt>--enable-fvisibility</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>new configure option and check for <em>gcc</em>
+ <tt>-fvisibility=hidden</tt> feature</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--enable-leaks</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>corrected to allow turning leak-checking off later in a
+ set of options.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--enable-stdnoreturn</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>new configure option makes the <code>_Noreturn</code>
+ keyword optional to ease transition.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--disable-pkg-ldflags</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>revised option also controls whether <code>$LDFLAGS</code>
+ from the build is provided in “<tt>-config</tt>”
+ and “<tt>.pc</tt>” files.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--disable-root-access</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>add configure option which tells ncurses to disallow most
+ file-opens by setuid processes.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--disable-wattr-macros</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>changed default to help packagers who reuse wide ncursesw
+ header file with non-wide ncurses library.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--with-pkg-config-libdir</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>revised option uses the actual search path from
+ <em>pkg-config</em> or <em>pkgconf</em> using the output from
+ <tt>--debug</tt>.</p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><tt>--with-ada-libname</tt><br>
+ <tt>--with-form-libname</tt><br>
+ <tt>--with-menu-libname</tt><br>
+ <tt>--with-panel-libname</tt>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>new several <tt>--with-<em>xxx</em>-libname</tt> options,
+ to help with pkgsrc</p>
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+
+ <h3><a name="h3-portability" id="h3-portability">Portability</a></h3>
+
+ <p>Many of the portability changes are implemented via the
+ configure script:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>add a special case in the configure script to work around
+ one of the build-time breakages reported for <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-openbsd.html">OpenBSD 6</a> here:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://www.mail-archive.com/bugs@openbsd.org/msg13200.html">
+ https://www.mail-archive.com/bugs@openbsd.org/msg13200.html</a></p>
+ </blockquote>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify configure check for <em>libtool</em> to prevent
+ accidental use of an OpenBSD program which uses the same
+ name.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify configuration checks for build-time tic/infocmp to
+ use <em>AC_CHECK_TOOL</em>. That can still be overridden by
+ <tt>--with-tic-path</tt> and <tt>--with-infocmp-path</tt>
+ when fallbacks are used, but even if not using fallbacks, the
+ improved check may help with cross-compiling.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>relax modification-time comparison in
+ <em>CF_LINK_FUNCS</em> to allow it to accept link() function
+ with NFS filesystems which change the mtime on the link
+ target, e.g., several BSD systems.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify configure check for c89/c99 aliases of
+ <em>clang</em> to use its <tt>-std</tt> option instead,
+ because some platforms, in particular macOS, do not provide
+ workable c89/c99 aliases.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify <em>CF_NCURSES_CONFIG</em> to work around
+ <em>Xcode</em>'s c99 "-W" option, which conflicts with
+ conventional use for passing linker options.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify configure scripts to filter out redefinitions of
+ _XOPEN_SOURCE, e.g., for NetBSD which generally supports 500,
+ but 600 is needed for ncursesw.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>Here are some of the other portability fixes:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>change configure-check and source-code for gcc's noreturn
+ attribute to assume it is a prefix rather than suffix,
+ matching c11's _Noreturn convention.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify mk-1st.awk to account for extra-suffix configure
+ option.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>build-fix for termsort module when configured with
+ termcap.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify configure script and makefiles to support ".PHONY"
+ make program feature.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>amend <em>libtool</em> configuration to add dependency for
+ install.tic, etc., in ncurses/Makefile on the lower-level
+ libraries.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>modify Ada95 source-generation utility to write to a file
+ given as parameter rather than to the standard output,
+ allowing builds with MinGW.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>amend tic/infocmp check to allow for the respective tool's
+ absence.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>build-fixes for gnat 10.1.1, whose gnatmake drops
+ integration with gprbuild.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>correct configure version-check/warning for g++ to allow
+ for 10.x</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <hr>
+
+ <h2><a name="h2-features" id="h2-features">Features of
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
+
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package is fully
+ upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>All of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
+ documented).</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports all of the
+ for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color,
+ forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition
+ of keypad and function keys.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> provides these SVr4
+ add-on libraries (not part of X/Open Curses):</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>the panels library, supporting a stack of windows with
+ backing store.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>the menus library, supporting a uniform but flexible
+ interface for menu programming.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>the form library, supporting data collection through
+ on-screen forms.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span>'s terminal database
+ is fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p><span class="main-name">ncurses</span> supports
+ user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are
+ hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
+ <em>same</em> terminal database.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>It can be optionally configured to match the format
+ used in related systems such as AIX and Tru64.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Alternatively, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ can be configured to use hashed databases rather than the
+ directory of files used by SVr4 curses.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> utilities have
+ options to allow you to filter terminfo entries for use with
+ less capable <em>curses</em>/<em>terminfo</em> versions such
+ as the HP-UX and AIX ports.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> package also has
+ many useful extensions over SVr4:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the
+ X/OPEN curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it
+ implements all <em>BASE</em> level features, and most
+ <em>EXTENDED</em> 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).</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Unlike SVr3 curses, <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if
+ your terminal has an insert-character capability.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Ada95 and C++ bindings.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and
+ FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm
+ package.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>The function <code>wresize</code> allows you to resize
+ windows, preserving their data.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>The functions <code>keyok</code> and
+ <code>define_key</code> allow you to better control the use
+ of function keys, e.g., disabling the <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> KEY_MOUSE, or by defining more
+ than one control sequence to map to a given key code.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Support for direct-color terminals, such as modern
+ xterm.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Support for 16-color terminals, such as <em>aixterm</em>
+ and <em>modern xterm</em>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now
+ features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient
+ than either BSD's or System V's.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>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).</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>The <a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">tic</span></a>/<a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a> utility
+ provided with <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> has the
+ ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
+ AT&T extension sets.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>A BSD-like <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">tset</span></a> utility is provided.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 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.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>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.)</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>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.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>The table-of-entries utility <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/toe.1m.html"><span class=
+ "part-name">toe</span></a> makes it easy for users to see
+ exactly what terminal types are available on the system.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro
+ entry point has a corresponding function which may be linked
+ (and will be prototype-checked) if the macro definition is
+ disabled with <code>#undef</code>.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <p>Extensive documentation is provided (see the <em><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading">Additional
+ Reading</a></em> section of the <em><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html"><span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> FAQ</a></em> for online
+ documentation).</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h2><a name="h2-who-uses" id="h2-who-uses">Applications using
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></h2>
+
+ <p>The <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> distribution
+ includes a selection of test programs (including a few games).
+ These are available separately as <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a></p>
+
+ <p>The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of
+ applications including:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <dl>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">aptitude</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude">https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">cdk</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>Curses Development Kit</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/cdk/">https://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
+ </p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ded</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>directory-editor</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ded/">https://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">dialog</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>the underlying application used in Slackware's setup,
+ and the basis for similar install/configure applications on
+ many systems.</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/dialog/">https://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">lynx</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>the text WWW browser</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://lynx.invisible-island.net/">https://lynx.invisible-island.net/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">mutt</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>mail utility</p>
+
+ <p><a href="http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ncftp</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>file-transfer utility</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://www.ncftp.com/">https://www.ncftp.com/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">nvi</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>New vi uses ncurses.</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi</a><br>
+
+ </p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">ranger</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>A console file manager with VI key bindings in
+ <em>Python</em>.</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://ranger.github.io/">https://ranger.github.io/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tin</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>newsreader, supporting color, MIME</p>
+
+ <p><a href="http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vifm</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>File manager with vi like keybindings</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://vifm.info/">https://vifm.info/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>as well as some that use <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> for the terminfo support alone:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <dl>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">minicom</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>terminal emulator for serial modem connections</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">mosh</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>a replacement for <code>ssh</code>.</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://mosh.org/">https://mosh.org/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tack</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>terminfo action checker</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">tmux</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>terminal multiplexor</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki">https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vile</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p><em>vi-like-emacs</em> may be built to use the terminfo,
+ termcap or curses interfaces.</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://invisible-island.net/vile/">https://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>and finally, those which use only the termcap interface:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <dl>
+ <dt><span class="part-name">emacs</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>text editor</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">less</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>The most commonly used <em>pager</em> (a program that
+ displays text files).</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/">http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">screen</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>terminal multiplexor</p>
+
+ <p><a href=
+ "https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+
+ <dt><span class="part-name">vim</span>
+ </dt>
+
+ <dd>
+ <p>text editor</p>
+
+ <p><a href="https://www.vim.org/">https://www.vim.org/</a></p>
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <h2><a name="h2-development" id="h2-development">Development
+ activities</a></h2>
+
+ <p>Zeyd Ben-Halim started <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
+ from a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S.
+ Raymond continued development. Jürgen Pfeifer wrote most of
+ the form and menu libraries.</p>
+
+ <p>Ongoing development work is done by <a href=
+ "mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas E. Dickey</a>. Thomas
+ E. Dickey has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software
+ Foundation, which held a <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">copyright on ncurses</a> 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 <a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#relicensed">ncurses FAQ</a> for
+ additional information).</p>
+
+ <p>Contact the current maintainers at</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <a href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</a>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <a href=
+ "mailto:bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org">bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</a>
+ </blockquote>
+ containing the line:
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><code>subscribe</code>
+ <em><name>@<host.domain></em></p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
+ development and testing of this package.</p>
+
+ <p>Beta versions of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> are
+ made available at</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><a href=
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/</a>
+ and<br>
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/</a> .</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>Patches to the current release are made available at</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <p><a href=
+ "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.2/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.2/</a>
+ and<br>
+ <a href=
+ "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.2/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.2/</a> .</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <p>There is an archive of the mailing list here:</p>
+
+ <blockquote>
+ <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>
+ </blockquote>
+
+ <h2><a name="h2-this-stuff" id="h2-this-stuff">Related
+ resources</a></h2>
+
+ <p>The release notes make scattered references to these pages,
+ which may be interesting by themselves:</p>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html"><span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span> licensing</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol versioning
+ in <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html">Comments on
+ <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> versus <span class=
+ "main-name">slang</span> (S-Lang)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-openbsd.html">Comments on
+ <span class="main-name">OpenBSD</span></a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html">tack – terminfo action
+ checker</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest – termcap
+ library checker</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href=
+ "https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html#download_database">Terminal
+ Database</a></li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h2><a name="h2-other-stuff" id="h2-other-stuff">Other
+ resources</a></h2>
+
+ <p>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, which also provides
+ several user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open
+ specification.</p>
+
+ <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> . The collection of computer
+ manuals at <a href=
+ "http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/">bitsavers.org</a> has also been
+ useful.</p>
+
+ <div class="nav">
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#h2-overview">Overview</a></li>
+
+ <li>
+ <a href="#h2-release-notes">Release Notes</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <a href="#h3-library">Library improvements</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#h4-new-library">New features</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h4-fixes-library">Other
+ improvements</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li>
+ <a href="#h3-programs">Program improvements</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#h4-utilities">Utilities</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h4-examples">Examples</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h3-database">Terminal database</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h3-documentation">Documentation</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h3-bug-fixes">Interesting bug-fixes</a></li>
+
+ <li>
+ <a href="#h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a>
+ <ul>
+ <li><a href="#h4-config-major">Major changes</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h4-config-options">Configuration
+ options</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h3-portability">Portability</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h2-features">Features of <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h2-who-uses">Applications using <span class=
+ "main-name">ncurses</span></a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h2-development">Development activities</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h2-this-stuff">Related resources</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="#h2-other-stuff">Other resources</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ </div>
+</body>
+</html>
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff