- The form library provides terminal-independent facilities
- for composing form screens on character-cell terminals.
- The library includes: field routines, which create and
- modify form fields; and form routines, which group fields
- into forms, display forms on the screen, and handle inter-
+ The form library provides terminal-independent facilities for composing
+ form screens on character-cell terminals. The library includes: field
+ routines, which create and modify form fields; and form routines, which
+ group fields into forms, display forms on the screen, and handle inter-
action with the user.
- The form library uses the curses libraries. To use the
- form library, link with the options -lform-lcurses.
+ The form library uses the curses libraries. To use the form library,
+ link with the options -lform-lcurses.
Your program should set up the locale, e.g.,
@@ -71,117 +71,115 @@
so that input/output processing will work.
- A curses initialization routine such as initscr must be
- called before using any of these functions.
+ A curses initialization routine such as initscr must be called before
+ using any of these functions.
- The form library maintains a default value for field
- attributes. You can get or set this default by calling
- the appropriate set_ or retrieval routine with a NULL
- field pointer. Changing this default with a set_ function
- affects future field creations, but does not change the
- rendering of fields already created.
+ The form library maintains a default value for field attributes. You
+ can get or set this default by calling the appropriate set_ or
+ retrieval routine with a NULL field pointer. Changing this default
+ with a set_ function affects future field creations, but does not
+ change the rendering of fields already created.
- Routines that return pointers return NULL on error, and
- set errno to the corresponding error-code returned by
- functions returning an integer. Routines that return an
- integer return one of the following error codes:
+ Routines that return pointers return NULL on error, and set errno to
+ the corresponding error-code returned by functions returning an inte-
+ ger. Routines that return an integer return one of the following error
+ codes:
E_OK The routine succeeded.
E_BAD_ARGUMENT
- Routine detected an incorrect or out-of-range argu-
- ment.
+ Routine detected an incorrect or out-of-range argument.
E_BAD_STATE
- Routine was called from an initialization or termina-
- tion function.
+ Routine was called from an initialization or termination function.
E_CONNECTED
The field is already connected to a form.
@@ -205,41 +203,55 @@
The form driver could not process the request.
E_SYSTEM_ERROR
- System error occurred (see errno).
+ System error occurred (see errno(3)).
E_UNKNOWN_COMMAND
The form driver code saw an unknown request code.
- The header file <form.h> automatically includes the header
- files <curses.h> and <eti.h>.
+ The header file <form.h> automatically includes the header files
+ <curses.h> and <eti.h>.
- In your library list, libform.a should be before libn-
- curses.a; that is, you want to say `-lform -lncurses', not
- the other way around (which would give you a link error
- using most linkers).
+ In your library list, libform.a should be before libncurses.a; that is,
+ you want to say "-lform -lncurses", not the other way around (which
+ would give you a link error when using static libraries).
- These routines emulate the System V forms library. They
- were not supported on Version 7 or BSD versions.
+ These routines emulate the System V forms library. They were not sup-
+ ported on Version 7 or BSD versions.
+
+ The menu facility was documented in SVr4.2 in CharacterUserInterface
+ Programming(UNIXSVR4.2).
+
+ It is not part of X/Open Curses.
+
+ Aside from ncurses, there are few implementations:
+
+ o systems based on SVr4 source code, e.g., Solaris.
+
+ o NetBSD curses.
+
+ A few functions in this implementation are extensions added for
+ ncurses, but not provided by other implementations, e.g.,
+ form_driver_w, unfocus_current_field.
- Juergen Pfeifer. Manual pages and adaptation for ncurses
- by Eric S. Raymond.
+ Juergen Pfeifer. Manual pages and adaptation for ncurses by Eric S.
+ Raymond.
- curses(3x) and related pages whose names begin "form_" for
- detailed descriptions of the entry points.
+ curses(3x) and related pages whose names begin "form_" for detailed
+ descriptions of the entry points.
- This describes ncurses version 6.0 (patch 20160910).
+ This describes ncurses version 6.2 (patch 20200222).
- form(3x)
+ form(3x)