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ncursesw-morphos/ANNOUNCE
Thomas E. Dickey 46722468f4 ncurses 5.3
2002-10-12 23:35:53 -04:00

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Announcing ncurses 5.3
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.
In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of
Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to
ncurses.
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), and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full
manual pages are provided for the library and tools.
The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU
distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses.
It is also available at [2]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses.
Release Notes
This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and
5.2; very few applications will require recompilation, depending on
the platform. These are the highlights from the change-log since
ncurses 5.2 release.
Interface changes:
* change type for bool used in headers to NCURSES_BOOL, which
usually is the same as the compiler's definition for bool.
* add all but two functions for X/Open curses wide-character
support. These are only available if the library is configured
using the --enable-widec option. Missing functions are
+ pecho_wchar()
+ slk_wset()
* add environment variable $NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS to modify the
assume_default_colors() extension.
New features and improvements:
* Improved support for termcap applications:
+ add logic to dump_entry.c to remove function-key definitions
that do not fit into the 1023-byte limit for generated
termcaps. This makes hds200 fit.
+ modify tgetent() to check if exit_attribute_mode resets the
alternate character set, and if so, attempt to adjust the
copy of the termcap "me" string which it will return to
eliminate that part. In particular, 'screen' would lose track
of line-drawing characters.
+ add check/fix to comp_parse.c to suppress warning about
missing acsc string. This happens in configurations where raw
termcap information is processed; tic already does this and
other checks.
+ add tic -A option to suppress capabilities which are
commented out when translating to termcap.
+ modify logic in lib_baudrate.c for ospeed, for FreeBSD to
make it work properly for termcap applications (patch by
Andrey A Chernov).
* add a call to _nc_keypad() in keypad() to accommodate applications
such as nvi, which use curses for output but not for input (fixes
Debian #131263, cf: 20011215).
* correct logic for COLORFGBG environment variable: if rxvt is
compiled with xpm support, the variable has three fields, making
it slightly incompatible with itself. In either case, the
background color is the last field.
Major bug fixes:
* rewrote limit-checks in wscrl() and associated
_nc_scroll_window(), to ensure that if the parameter of wscrl() is
larger than the size of the scrolling region, then the scrolling
region will be cleared.
* modify tset to restore original I/O modes if an error is
encountered. Also modify to use buffered stderr consistently
rather than mixing with write().
* move calls to def_shell_mode() and def_prog_mode() before loop
with callbacks in lib_set_term.c, since the c++ demo otherwise
initialized the tty modes before saving them.
* modified wresize() to ensure that a failed realloc will not
corrupt the window structure, and to make subwindows fit within
the resized window.
* altered resizeterm() to avoid having it fail when a child window
cannot be resized because it would be larger than its parent.
* correct/improve logic to produce an exit status for errors in
tput, which did not exit with an error when told to put a string
not in the current terminfo entry.
* modify behavior of can_clear_with() so that if an application is
running in a non-bce terminals with default colors enabled, it
returns true, allowing the user to select/paste text without
picking up extraneous trailing blanks.
* add a check in relative_move() to guard against buffer overflow in
the overwrite logic.
* add some limit/pointer checks to -S option of tputs.
* modify mvcur() to avoid emitting newline characters when nonl()
mode is set. Normally this is not a problem since the actual
terminal mode is set to suppress nl/crlf translations, however it
is useful to allow the caller to manipulate the terminal mode to
avoid staircasing effects after spawning a process which writes
messages (for lynx 2.8.4).
Portability:
* configure script:
+ modify check in --disable-overwrite option so that it is used
by default unless the --prefix/$prefix value is not /usr, in
attempt to work around packagers who do not read the INSTALL
notes.
+ correct a typo in configure --enable-colorfgbg option, and
move it to the experimental section (cf: 20011208).
+ modify configure script to allow building with termcap only,
or with fallbacks only. In this case, we do not build tic and
toe.
+ modify run_tic.sh to check if the build is a cross-compile.
In that case, do not use the build's tic to install the
terminfo database.
+ modify c++/Makefile.in to accommodate archive programs that
are different for C++ than for C, and add cases for vendor's
C++ compilers on Solaris and IRIX.
+ add several configure script options to aid with
cross-compiling: --with-build-cc, --with-build-cflags,
--with-build-ldflags, and --with-build-libs.
+ add experimental --with-caps=XXX option to customize to
similar terminfo database formats such as AIX 4.x
+ add configure option --with-ospeed to assist packagers in
transition to 5.3 change to ospeed type.
* library:
+ implement a simple vsscanf() fallback function which uses the
%n conversion to help parse the input data.
+ various fixes to build/work with different implementations of
vsscanf().
+ add/use macro to suppress sign-extension of char type on
platforms where this is a problem in ctype macros, e.g.,
Solaris.
+ finish changes needed to build dll's on cygwin.
+ add #undef's before possible redefinition of ERR and OK in
curses.h
* programs:
+ modify ifdef's in write_entry.c to allow use of symbolic
links on platforms with no hard links, e.g., BeOS.
+ modify _nc_write_entry() to allow for the possibility that
linking aliases on a filesystem that ignores case would not
succeed because the source and destination differ only by
case, e.g., NCR260VT300WPP0 on cygwin.
+ modify logic in tic, toe, tput and tset which checks for
basename of argv[0] to work properly on systems such as OS/2
which have case-independent filenames and/or program
suffixes, e.g., ".ext".
Features of Ncurses
The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4)
curses:
* All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
documented).
* Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping,
color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic
recognition of keypad and function keys.
* An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack of
windows with backing store, is included.
* An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a uniform but
flexible interface for menu programming, is included.
* An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data collection
through on-screen forms, is included.
* Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1)
implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format
SVr4 curses uses.
* The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo entries
for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as the
HP/UX and AIX ports.
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).
* 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.
* Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
* The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving
their data.
* 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.
* Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
or System V's.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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).
* The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability
to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension
sets.
* A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
* 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.
* 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.)
* 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.
* A script (capconvert) 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.
* 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.
* The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see
exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
* 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
#undef.
* An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document
provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming
interface.
State of the Package
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.
The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications
including (versions starting with those noted):
cdk
Curses Development Kit
[3]http://invisible-island.net/cdk.
[4]http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html
ded
directory-editor
[5]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.
lynx
the character-screen WWW browser
[7]http://lynx.isc.org/release.
Midnight Commander
file manager
[8]www.gnome.org/mc/.
mutt
mail utility
[9]http://www.mutt.org.
ncftp
file-transfer utility
[10]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/.
tin
newsreader, supporting color, MIME
[12]http://www.tin.org.
taper
tape archive utility
[13]http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/.
vh-1.6
Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
[14]http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html.
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
minicom
terminal emulator
[15]http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html.
vile
vi-like-emacs
[16]http://invisible-island.net/vile.
The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
(including a few games).
Who's Who and What's What
The original developers of ncurses are [17]Zeyd Ben-Halim and [18]Eric
S. Raymond. Ongoing work is being done by [19]Thomas Dickey and
[20]J<>rgen Pfeifer. [21]Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the
Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses.
Contact the current maintainers at [22]bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line:
subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development
and testing of this package.
Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made
available at [23]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses.
Future Plans
* Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization
support.
* Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in
working 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.
[24]http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo.
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not
covered in the terminfo file at [25]Richard Shuford's archive.
References
1. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses
2. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses
3. http://invisible-island.net/cdk/cdk.html
4. http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html
5. http://invisible-island.net/ded/ded.html
6. http://invisible-island.net/dialog/dialog.html
7. http://lynx.isc.org/release/
8. file://localhost/usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-5.2-20021012/doc/html/www.gnome.org/mc/
9. http://www.mutt.org/
10. http://www.ncftp.com/
11. http://www.bostic.com/vi/
12. http://www.tin.org/
13. http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/
14. http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html
15. http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html
16. http://invisible-island.net/vile/vile.html
17. mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com
18. http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html
19. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com
20. http://www.familiepfeifer.de/Contact.aspx?Lang=en
21. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com
22. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org
23. ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses
24. http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo
25. http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html
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