Announcing ncurses @VERSION@
+
@@ -18,12 +19,15 @@ and multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping,
and has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.
In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
-considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of
-Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to
+considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the keepers of
+Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to
ncurses.
-The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It should port easily to
-any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2 Warp!
+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!
The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including a
terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), tput(1), tset(1),
@@ -32,142 +36,280 @@ the library and tools.
-This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0; very few
-applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
-These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.0 release.
+This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.4;
+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:
-
made the extended terminal capabilities
- (configure --enable-tcap-names)
- a standard feature (though the configure script can disable it,
- it is built by default).
-
-
removed the trace() function and related trace support
- from the production library. This is the only interface change that
- may cause problems with existing applications linked to shared
- libraries, since not all platforms use the minor version number.
-
-
explicitly initialized to zero several data items which were
- implicitly initialized, e.g., cur_term. If not explicitly
- initialized, their storage type is C (common), and causes problems
- linking on some platforms.
-
-
modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict with
- C++ STL.
+
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.,
+
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:
+New features and improvements:
-
added a new extension, assume_default_colors() to
- provide better control over the use of default colors. This is
- the principal visible difference between ncurses 5.1 and preceding
- versions. The new extension allows an application to specify what
- colors pair 0 uses.
-
- NOTE: Pair 0 defaults to white on black unless
- you have invoked use_default_colors() or set it via
- assume_default_colors(). An application that calls
- start_colors() without setting the background color
- will consistently have a black background no matter what color your
- terminal's background actually is.
-
-
made several fixes to the terminfo-to-termcap conversion, and
- have been using the generated termcaps without further hand-tuning.
- This builds on the extension use_extended_names() by
- adding "obsolete" termcap strings to terminfo.src
-
-
modified tic so that if extended names (i.e.,
- configure --enable-tcap-names) are active, then tic -x
- will also write "obsolete" capabilities that are present in the
- terminfo source.
-
-
added screen's AX capability (for ECMA SGR 39 and 49) to applicable
- terminfo entries, use presence of this as a check for a small
- improvement in setting default colors.
-
-
add -a option to tic and infocmp, which retains commented-out
- capabilities during source translation/comparison, e.g., captoinfo
- and infotocap.
-
-
-
implemented limited support for UTF-8, useful with XFree86 xterm:
-
-
if the configure --enable-widec option is
- given, append 'w' to names of the generated libraries (e.g.,
- libncursesw.so) to avoid conflict with existing ncurses libraries.
-
add a simple UTF-8 output driver to the experimental
- wide-character support. If any of the environment variables
- LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or LANG contain the string "UTF-8", this driver
- will be used to translate the output to UTF-8.
-
modified view.c to make a rudimentary viewer of UTF-8 text.
-
-
-
modify raw() and noraw() to clear/restore
- IEXTEN flag which affects stty lnext on systems such as FreeBSD
-
-
reordered tests during mouse initialization to allow for gpm to run
- in xterm, or for xterm to be used under OS/2 EMX. Also dropped test
- for $DISPLAY in favor of the terminfo capability
- kmous=\E[M or
- if $TERM environment variable contains "xterm".
-
-
added configure option --with-manpage-symlinks, which
- provides for fully indexing manpage entries by making symbolic links
- for the aliases.
-
-
changed unctrl() to render C1 characters (128-159) as
- ~@, ~A, etc.
-
-
add experimental configure option --enable-colorfgbg to check for
- $COLORTERM variable as set by rxvt/aterm/Eterm.
-
-
made the infocmp -F option less verbose.
-
-
dropped support for gnat 3.10 (gnat 3.12 is current).
+
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:
-
modified infocmp -e, -E options to ensure that generated fallback.c
- type for Booleans agrees with term.h
-
documented a special case of incompatiblity between ncurses 4.2 and
- 5.0, added a section for this in INSTALL.
+
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.
-
corrected tests for file-descriptors in OS/2 EMX mouse support. A
- negative value could be used by FD_SET, causing the select() call to
- wait indefinitely.
+
cells in the WINDOW which are continuations of a multicolumn
+ character are encoded differently, making repainting more
+ reliable.
-
made 'tput flash' work properly for xterm by flushing output in
- delay_output() when using napms(), and modifying xterm's terminfo to
- specify no padding character. Otherwise, xterm's reported baud rate
- could mislead ncurses into producing too few padding characters.
+
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.
-
modified lib_addch.c to allow repeated update to the lower-right
- corner, rather than displaying only the first character written until
- the cursor is moved. Recent versions of SVr4 curses can update the
- lower-right corner, and behave this way.
+
make setcchar() now works when its wchar_t* parameter is
+ pointing to a string which contains more data than can be converted.
-
modified echo() behavior of getch() to match Solaris curses for
- carriage return and backspace (reported by Neil Zanella).
+
win_wchnstr() now works for more than one cell.
-
corrected offsets used for subwindows in wresize()
+
resizeterm() now processes all levels of window hierarchy.
-
modified configure script so AC_MSG_ERROR is temporarily defined to
- a warning in AC_PROG_CXX to make it recover from a missing C++
- compiler without requiring user to add --without-cxx option
+
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.
-
corrected logic in lib_twait.c as used by lib_mouse.c for GPM mouse
- support when poll() is used rather than select().
+
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.
-
made several fixes for buffer overflows, unchecked recursion,
- improvements in performance, etc. See the NEWS file for details.
+
+
+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:
+
+
+
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.
+
+
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.
+
+
Features of Ncurses
@@ -283,61 +425,60 @@ including (versions starting with those noted):
-The original developers of ncurses are Zeyd Ben-Halim and
-Eric S. Raymond.
+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
-Thomas Dickey
-and
-Jürgen Pfeifer.
-Thomas Dickey
-acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the
-copyright on ncurses.
+Thomas Dickey.
+Thomas Dickey
+acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation,
+which holds the copyright on ncurses.
Contact the current maintainers at
bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
@@ -370,7 +511,7 @@ This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and
testing of this package.
@@ -382,14 +523,16 @@ on them, please join the ncurses list.
Other Related Resources
-The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format
-terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond.
-http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo.
+The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format
+terminal description file maintained by
+Eric Raymond .
+Unlike the older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided
+in the same file.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at
Richard Shuford's
-archive.
+archive .