X-Git-Url: https://ncurses.scripts.mit.edu/?p=ncurses.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=ANNOUNCE;h=11933c5f6d55f4f21e79e0829da3c801365977ce;hp=5a2a139850d892ffa8efa3b34501cbf10710a5f0;hb=34d602f272c394e9a980438e636e1ce4d355f83b;hpb=55ccd2b959766810cf7db8d1c4462f338ce0afc8 diff --git a/ANNOUNCE b/ANNOUNCE index 5a2a1398..11933c5f 100644 --- a/ANNOUNCE +++ b/ANNOUNCE @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ - Announcing ncurses 5.5 + Announcing ncurses 5.9 The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, @@ -27,192 +27,30 @@ Release Notes This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 - through 5.4; very few applications will require recompilation, + through 5.8; very few applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform. These are the highlights from the - change-log since ncurses 5.4 release. - - Interface changes: - * terminfo installs "xterm-new" as "xterm" entry rather than - "xterm-old" (aka xterm-r6). - * terminfo data is installed using the tic -x option (few systems - still use ncurses 4.2). - * modify C++ binding to work with newer C++ compilers by providing - initializers and using modern casts. Old-style header names are - still used in this release to allow compiling with not-so-old - compilers. - * modify parameter type in c++ binding for insch() and mvwinsch() to - be consistent with underlying ncurses library (was char, is - chtype). - * change NCursesWindow::err_handler() to a virtual function. - * form and menu libraries now work with wide-character data. - Applications which bypassed the form library and manipulated the - FIELD.buf data directly will not work properly with libformw, - since that no longer points to an array of char. The - set_field_buffer() and field_buffer() functions translate to/from - the actual field data. - * add symbol to curses.h which can be used to suppress include of - stdbool.h, e.g., - #define NCURSES_ENABLE_STDBOOL_H 0 - #include - - * change SP->_current_attr to a pointer, adjust ifdef's to ensure - that libtinfo.so and libtinfow.so have the same ABI. The reason - for this is that the corresponding data which belongs to the - upper-level ncurses library has a different size in each model. - * winnstr() now returns multibyte character strings for the - wide-character configuration. - * assume_default_colors() no longer requires that - use_default_colors() be called first. - * data_ahead() now works with wide-characters. - * slk_set() and slk_wset() now accept and store multibyte or - multicolumn characters. - * start_color() now returns OK if colors have already been started. - start_color() also returns ERR if it cannot allocate memory. - * pair_content() now returns -1 for consistency with init_pair() if - it corresponds to the default-color. - * unctrl() now returns null if its parameter does not correspond to - an unsigned char. - - New features and improvements: - * library - + environment variable NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS supports - miscellaneous terminal emulators which ignore alternate - character set escape sequences when in UTF-8 mode. - + modify initialization of key lookup table so that if an - extended capability (tic -x) string is defined, and its name - begins with 'k', ncurses will automatically treat it as a - key. - + change GPM initialization, using dl library to load it - dynamically at runtime. - + form, menu and panel libraries support debug-tracing. - * add NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO.html by Pradeep Padala (see - http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NCURSES-Programming-HOWTO/). - * programs: - * infocmp: - + The -i option now matches 8-bit controls against its table - entries, e.g., so it can analyze the xterm-8bit entry. - + add "-x" option to infocmp like tic's "-x", for use in "-F" - comparisons. This modifies infocmp to only report extended - capabilities if the -x option is given, making this more - consistent with tic. Some scripts may break, since infocmp - previous gave this information without an option. - * tic: - + modify termcap-parsing to retain 2-character aliases at the - beginning of an entry if the "-x" option is used in tic. - + filter out long extended names when translating to termcap - format. Only two characters are permissible for termcap - capability names. - + correct translation of "%%" in terminfo format to termcap, - e.g., using "tic -C". - + modify the "-c -v" options to ignore delays when comparing - strings. Also modify it to ignore a canceled sgr string, - e.g., for terminals which cannot properly combine attributes - in one control sequence. - + add a check for improperly ended strings, i.e., where a - following line begins in column 1. - + add a check in tic for terminfo entries having an sgr0 but no - sgr string. This confuses Tru64 and HPUX curses when combined - with color, e.g., making them leave line-drawing characters - in odd places. - + add check (with debug configuration) that provides about the - runtime changes that would be made to sgr0 for termcap - applications. - * tset: - + add -c and -w options to allow user to suppress ncurses' - resizing of the terminal emulator window in the special case - where it is not able to detect the true size. - - Major bug fixes: - * improve logic in tgetent() which adjusts the termcap "me" string - to work with ISO-2022 string used in xterm-new. This is a feature - that was incompletely implemented in ncurses 5.3. ncurses attempts - to provide termcap clients with the portion of the sgr0 (termcap - "me") string that does not reset line-drawing. - * cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn - character are encoded differently, making repainting more - reliable. - * amend change to setupterm() in ncurses 5.4 (20030405) which would - reuse the value of cur_term if the same output was selected. This - now reuses it only when setupterm() is called from tgetent(), - which has no notion of separate SCREENs. Note that tgetent() must - be called after initscr() or newterm() to use this feature. - * make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is pointing - to a string which contains more data than can be converted. - * win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell. - * resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy. - * disable GPM mouse support when $TERM happens to be prefixed with - "xterm". Gpm_Open() would otherwise assert that it can deal with - mouse events in this case. - * add SP->_screen_acs_map[], used to ensure that mapping of missing - line-drawing characters is handled properly. For example, - ACS_DARROW is absent from xterm-new, and it was coincidentally - displayed the same as ACS_BTEE. - - Portability: - * configure script: - + new options: - - --enable-largefile - set compiler and linker flags to use largefile - support. - - --enable-ext-colors - Allow encoding of 256 foreground and background - colors, e.g., with the xterm-256color or - xterm-88color terminfo entries. This requires ABI 6 - because it changes the size of cchar_t. - - --enable-ext-mouse - This defines NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION 2, and modifies - the encoding of mouse events to support wheel mice, - which may transmit buttons 4 and 5. This works with - xterm and similar terminal emulators. This requires - ABI 6 because it changes the encoding of mouse - events. - - --with-chtype - overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of chtype - - --with-mmask-t - overriding of the non-LP64 model's use of mmask_t - - --without-xterm-new - Installs "xterm-old" as the "xterm" entry of the - terminfo database. - - + The --with-termlib option now accepts a value which sets the - name of the terminfo library. This would allow a packager to - build libtinfow.so renamed to coincide with libtinfo.so - + fixes/improvements for cross-compiling: - o suppress $suffix in misc/run_tic.sh when - cross-compiling. This allows cross-compiles to use the - host's tic program to handle the "make install.data" - step. - o correct BUILD_CPPFLAGS substitution in - ncurses/Makefile.in, to allow cross-compiling from a - separate directory tree. - * library: - + add ifdef's for _LP64 in curses.h to avoid using wasteful - 64-bits for chtype and mmask_t, but add configure option - --disable-lp64 in case anyone used that configuration. - + modify C++ binding to use some C internal functions to make - it compile properly on Solaris (and other platforms). - + remove check in newwin() that prevents allocating windows - that extend beyond the screen (Solaris does this). - + check for nl_langinfo(CODESET), use it if available. This - replaces ad hoc tests of environment variables to check if - the terminal is setup for UTF-8 encoding. Applications which - do not call setlocale() should be corrected, to make them - work properly with UTF-8 encoding. - In particular, applications which assume (and do not call - setlocale()) that Latin-1 codes are printable will no longer - work in a UTF-8 locale since the ad hoc check of environment - variables to see if the locale was UTF-8 is not used when - nl_langinfo(CODESET) is available. - + use setlocale() to query the program's current locale rather - than using getenv(). This supports applications which rely - upon legacy treatment of 8-bit characters when the locale is - not initialized. + change-log since ncurses 5.8 release. + + This is a bug-fix release, correcting a small number of urgent + problems in the ncurses library from the 5.8 release. + + It also improves the Ada95 binding: + * fixes a longstanding portability problem with its use of the + [3]set_field_type function. Because that function uses + variable-length argument lists, its interface with gnat does not + work with certain platforms. + * 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. + 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 + [4]here. + * additional improvements were made for portability of the ncurses + examples, adding rpm- and dpkg-scripts for test-builds. See + [5]this page for snapshots and other information. Features of Ncurses @@ -239,28 +77,28 @@ The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4: * The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE - level features, but not all EXTENDED features). Most - EXTENDED-level features not directly concerned with wide-character - support are implemented, including many function calls not - supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all calls is - documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only). + 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). * Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability. * Ada95 and C++ bindings. - * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 - console windows. + * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and FreeBSD + and OS/2 console windows. * Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package. - * The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving + * The function wresize allows you to resize windows, preserving their data. - * The function use_default_colors() allows you to use the terminal's + * The function use_default_colors allows you to use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair, achieving the effect of transparent colors. - * The functions keyok() and define_key() allow you to better control - the use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, - or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given - key code. - * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm. + * The functions keyok and define_key allow you to better control the + use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by + defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key + code. + * Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when + configured using the --enable-ext-colors option. + * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and modern xterm. * Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's or System V's. @@ -268,7 +106,7 @@ 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. + powerful than the 4.4BSD curses quickch routine. * Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the @@ -331,59 +169,55 @@ cdk Curses Development Kit - [3]http://invisible-island.net/cdk/ - [4]http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/ + [6]http://invisible-island.net/cdk/ + [7]http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/ ded directory-editor - [5]http://invisible-island.net/ded/ + [8]http://invisible-island.net/ded/ dialog the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux. - [6]http://invisible-island.net/dialog/ + [9]http://invisible-island.net/dialog/ lynx the character-screen WWW browser - [7]http://lynx.isc.org/release/ + [10]http://lynx.isc.org/release/ Midnight Commander file manager - [8]http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/ + [11]http://www.midnight-commander.org/ mutt mail utility - [9]http://www.mutt.org/ + [12]http://www.mutt.org/ ncftp file-transfer utility - [10]http://www.ncftp.com/ + [13]http://www.ncftp.com/ nvi New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and later. - [11]http://www.bostic.com/vi/ + [14]https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi pinfo Lynx-like info browser. - [12]http://dione.ids.pl/~pborys/software/pinfo/ + [15]https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/ tin - newsreader, supporting color, MIME [13]http://www.tin.org/ - - vh-1.6 - Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File - [14]http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html + newsreader, supporting color, MIME [16]http://www.tin.org/ as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone: minicom terminal emulator - [15]http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html + [17]http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/ vile vi-like-emacs - [16]http://invisible-island.net/vile/ + [18]http://invisible-island.net/vile/ The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs (including a few games). @@ -391,11 +225,11 @@ Who's Who and What's What Zeyd Ben-Halim started it from a previous package pcurses, written by - Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development. Jürgen Pfeifer + Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development. Juergen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries. Ongoing work is being done - by [17]Thomas Dickey. Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the + by [19]Thomas Dickey. Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses. - Contact the current maintainers at [18]bug-ncurses@gnu.org. + Contact the current maintainers at [20]bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line: @@ -405,7 +239,7 @@ Who's Who and What's What and testing of this package. Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made - available at [19]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ . + available at [21]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ . Future Plans @@ -419,33 +253,36 @@ Future Plans Other Related Resources The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format - terminal description file maintained by [20]Eric Raymond . Unlike the - older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided in the same - file. + terminal description file once maintained by [22]Eric Raymond . 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. You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not - covered in the terminfo file at [21]Richard Shuford's archive . + covered in the terminfo file at [23]Richard Shuford's archive . References 1. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ 2. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ - 3. http://invisible-island.net/cdk/ - 4. http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/ - 5. http://invisible-island.net/ded/ - 6. http://invisible-island.net/dialog/ - 7. http://lynx.isc.org/release/ - 8. http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/ - 9. http://www.mutt.org/ - 10. http://www.ncftp.com/ - 11. http://www.bostic.com/vi/ - 12. http://dione.ids.pl/~pborys/software/pinfo/ - 13. http://www.tin.org/ - 14. http://www.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html - 15. http://www.netsonic.fi/~walker/minicom.html - 16. http://invisible-island.net/vile/ - 17. mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net - 18. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org - 19. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ - 20. http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/ - 21. http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html + 3. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_fieldtype.3x + 4. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-Ada95.html + 5. http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html + 6. http://invisible-island.net/cdk/ + 7. http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/ + 8. http://invisible-island.net/ded/ + 9. http://invisible-island.net/dialog/ + 10. http://lynx.isc.org/release/ + 11. http://www.midnight-commander.org/ + 12. http://www.mutt.org/ + 13. http://www.ncftp.com/ + 14. https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi + 15. https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/ + 16. http://www.tin.org/ + 17. http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/ + 18. http://invisible-island.net/vile/ + 19. mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net + 20. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org + 21. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ + 22. http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/ + 23. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal