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ncursesw-morphos/announce.html.in
Thomas E. Dickey d66080c210 ncurses 6.1 - patch 20180127 
+ updated release notes
+ amend a warning message from tic which should have flagged misuse
  of "XT" capability in "screen" terminal description.
> terminfo changes:
+ trim "XT" from screen entry, add comments to explain why it was
  not suitable -TD
+ modify iterm to use xterm+sl-twm building block -TD
+ mark konsole-420pc, konsole-vt100, konsole-xf3x obsolete reflecting
  konsole's removal in 2008 -TD
+ expanded the history section of konsole to explain its flawed
  imitation of xterm's keyboard -TD
+ use xterm+x11mouse in screen.* entries because screen does not yet
  support xterm's 1006 mode -TD
+ add nsterm-build400 for macOS 10.13 -TD
+ add ansi+idc1, use that in ansi+idc adding dch for consistency -TD
+ update vte to vte-2017 -TD
+ add ecma+strikeout to vte-2017 -TD
+ add iterm2-direct -TD
+ updated teraterm, added teraterm-256color -TD
+ add mlterm-direct -TD
+ add descriptions for ANSI building-blocks -TD
2018-01-28 01:02:35 +00:00

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<title>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</title>
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<h1 class="no-header">Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</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 OSX.</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>&nbsp;.</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>&nbsp;.</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>
@VERSION@, released <strong>January 27, 2018</strong>.</p>
<p>This release is designed to be source-compatible with
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 5.0 through 6.0; 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 intent of the release is to
provide extensions to the <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>
<strong>6</strong> ABI:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>improve integration of <span class="part-name">tput</span>
and <span class="part-name">tset</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>provide support for extended numeric capabilities.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in
this announcement.</p>
<p>The release notes also mention some bug-fixes, but are focused
on new features and improvements to existing features since
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> 6.0 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>The improved integration of <span class=
"part-name">tput</span> and <span class="part-name">tset</span>
made only small changes to the libraries. However, supporting
extended numeric capabilities required a few changes:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The <code>TERMINAL</code> structure in
<code>&lt;term.h&gt;</code> is now opaque. Doing that allowed
making the structure larger, to hold the extended numeric
data.</p>
<p>A few applications required changes during development of
<span class="main-name">ncurses&nbsp;6.1</span> because those
applications misused the members of that structure, e.g.,
directly modifying it rather than using <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_kernel.3x.html#h3-def_prog_mode_-def_shell_mode">
def_prog_mode</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Having made <code>TERMINAL</code> opaque (and because none
of the library functions use anything except a pointer to
<code>TERMINAL</code>), it was possible to increase the size
of the structure, adding to the end.</p>
<p>Existing applications which were linked to the
<span class="part-name">ncurses&nbsp;6.0</span> high-level
(<em>ncurses</em>, <em>ncursesw</em>) and low-level
(<em>tinfo</em>, <em>tinfo</em>) libraries should not require
re-linking since the binary interface did not change, nor did
the structure offsets with <code>TERMINAL</code> change.</p>
<p>A few applications use the inner <code>TERMTYPE</code>
structure's offsets to refer to terminfo capabilities within
that structure. Again, those do not require modification
because their offsets within <code>TERMINAL</code> did not
change.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When configured for wide-characters, i.e.,
&ldquo;ncursesw&rdquo; the <code>TERMINAL</code> structure is
extended.</p>
<p>The new data in <code>TERMINAL</code> holds the same
information as <code>TERMTYPE</code>, but with larger numbers
(&ldquo;int&rdquo; versus &ldquo;short&rdquo;). It is named
<code>TERMTYPE2</code>.</p>
<p>The library uses this structure internally in preference
to <code>TERMTYPE</code>, referring to <code>TERMTYPE</code>
only to initialize it for applications that use the
capabilities defined in <code>&lt;term.h&gt;</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When configured for 8-bit (narrow) characters, the
<code>TERMTYPE2</code> structure is not used.</p>
</li>
<li>The updated application binary interface is 6.1.20171230
(used for new <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-mapsyms.html">versioned
symbols</a>), although the interface changes were developed
several months previously.</li>
</ul>
<p>The motivation for making this extension came from noticing
that <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#bsd42-numeric-caps">
termcap applications</a> could (though not <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html#cause_numbers">
realistically</a>) use larger numbers than would fit in 16-bits,
and the fact that the number of color pairs for a 256-color xterm
could not be expressed in terminfo (i.e., 32767 versus 65536).
Also, a few terminals support direct-colors, which could use the
extension.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, applications that use internal details of
a library are unsupported. There was exactly one exception for
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span>: the <span class=
"main-name">tack</span> program <em>used</em> the internal
details of <code>TERMINAL</code>, because it provides an
ncurses-specific feature for interactively modifying a terminfo
description and writing the updated description to a text-file.
It was possible to not only separate <span class=
"main-name">tack</span> from these <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html#portable">internal
details of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span></a>, but to
generalize it so that the program works with Unix curses
(omitting the ncurses-specific feature). That was released as
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack/CHANGES.html#index-t20170726">
<span class="main-name">tack</span>&nbsp;1.08</a> in July
2017.</p>
<p>While making changes to <span class="main-name">tack</span> to
eliminate its dependency upon <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> internals, the publicly-visible
details of those internals were reviewed, and some symbols were
moved to private header files, while others were marked
explicitly as <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> internals.
Future releases of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> may
eliminate some of those symbols (such as those used by
<span class="main-name">tack</span>&nbsp;1.07) because they are
neither part of the API or the ABI.</p>
<p>Using the <code>TERMTYPE2</code> extended numeric
capabilities, it is possible to support both color pair values
and color values past 32767. Taking compatibility into account,
developers readily understand that neither function signatures
nor structure offsets change. Also, existing functions have to
operate with the extended numbers. Most of that work is internal
to the library. For the external interfaces, a hybrid approach
was used:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>X/Open Curses defined function prototypes such as
<code>wattr_set</code> with an unused parameter, for
&ldquo;future&rdquo; use. After 25 years, the future is here:
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> uses the parameter to
augment color pair values as described in the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-EXTENSIONS">
manual page</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Other functions such as those defining color pairs did not
have a corresponding <em>reserved</em> parameter. For those,
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> defines extended
versions such as <code>init_extended_pair</code> (versus
<code>init_pair</code>), <code>init_extended_color</code>
(versus <code>init_color</code>).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and
extensions) are provided in this release:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Several new functions simplify management of large sets of
color pairs: <code>reset_color_pairs</code>,
<code>alloc_pair</code>, <code>find_pair</code> and
<code>free_pair</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>New "RGB" extension capability for direct-color support is
used to improve performance of
<code>color_content</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The internal <code>colorpair_t</code> is now a struct,
eliminating an internal 8-bit limit on colors</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Allocation for <code>SCREEN</code>'s color-pair table
starts small, grows on demand up to the limit given in the
terminal description.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><code>setcchar</code> and <code>getcchar</code> now treat
a negative color-pair as an error.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h4><a name="h4-fixes-library" id="h4-fixes-library">Other
improvements</a></h4>
<p>These are new or revised features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify <code>c++/etip.h.in</code> to accommodate
deprecation of throw and throws in c++17</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add new function <code>unfocus_current_field</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add option to preserve leading whitespace in form
fields</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add a macro for <code>is_linetouched</code> and adjust the
function's return value to make it possible for most
applications to check for an error-return.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add build-time utility <code>report_offsets</code> to help
show when the various configurations of tinfo library are
compatible or not.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>drop two symbols obsoleted in 2004:
<code>_nc_check_termtype</code>, and
<code>_nc_resolve_uses</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>move <code>_nc_tracebits</code>, <code>_tracedump</code>
and <code>_tracemouse</code> to <code>curses.priv.h</code>,
since they are not part of the suggested ABI6.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>mark some structs in form/menu/panel libraries as
potentially opaque without modifying API/ABI.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>ifdef'd header-file definition of <code>mouse_trafo</code>
with <code>NCURSES_NOMACROS</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>remove initialization-check for calling <code>napms</code>
in the term-driver configuration; none is needed.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>trace</code> to avoid overwriting existing
file</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>These are improvements to existing features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify <code>make_hash</code> to allow building with
address-sanitizer, assuming that <code>--disable-leaks</code>
is configured.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>move <code>SCREEN</code> field for <code>use_tioctl</code>
data before the ncursesw fields, and limit that to the
sp-funcs configuration to improve termlib compatibility</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify db-iterator:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>ignore zero-length files in db-iterator; these are
useful for instance to suppress
<code>$HOME/.terminfo</code> when not wanted.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>update_getenv</code> to ensure that
environment variables which are not initially set will be
checked later if an application happens to set them</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>_nc_outc_wrapper</code> to use the standard
output if the screen was not initialized, rather than
returning an error.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve checks for low-level terminfo functions when the
terminal has not been initialized.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>set_curterm</code> to update
<code>ttytype[]</code> data used by longname/p&gt;</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>_nc_get_screensize</code> to allow for
<code>use_env</code> and <code>use_tioctl</code> state to be
per-screen when sp-funcs are configured, better matching the
behavior when using the term-driver configuration.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>remove an early-return from <code>_nc_do_color,</code>
which can interfere with data needed by <code>bkgd</code>
when <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> is configured
with extended colors</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>incorporate <code>A_COLOR</code> mask into
<code>COLOR_PAIR</code>, in case user application provides an
out-of-range pair number</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify logic for <code>endwin</code>-state to be able to
detect the case where the screen was never initialized, using
that to trigger a flush of <span class=
"main-name">ncurses'</span> buffer for <code>mvcur</code>,
e.g., in the sample program <span class=
"part-name">dots_mvcur</span> for the term-driver
configuration.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>These are corrections to existing features:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>fixes for writing extended color pairs in
<code>putwin</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify no-leaks code for <code>lib_cur_term.c</code> to
account for the <code>tgetent</code> cache.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>amend handling of the <code>repeat_char</code> capability
in <code>EmitRange</code> to avoid scope creep: translate the
character to the alternate character set when the alternate
character set is enabled, and do not use
<code>repeat_char</code> for characters past 255.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve wide-character implementation of
<code>myADDNSTR</code> in <code>frm_driver.c</code>, which
was inconsistent with the normal implementation.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>winnstr</code> and <code>winchnstr</code> to
return error if the output pointer is null, as well as adding
a null pointer check of the window pointer for better
compatibility with other implementations.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>setupterm</code> to save original tty-modes
so that <code>erasechar</code> works as expected. Also modify
<code>_nc_setupscreen</code> to avoid redundant calls to get
original tty-modes.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>wattr_set</code> and <code>wattr_get</code>
to return <code>ERR</code> if <em>win</em>-parameter is null,
as documented.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct order of initialization for traces in
<code>use_env</code> and <code>use_tioctl</code> versus first
<code>_tracef</code> calls.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct parameters for <code>copywin</code> call in
<code>_nc_Synchronize_Attributes</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>flush the standard output in <code>_nc_flush</code> for
the case where <code>SP</code> is zero, e.g., when called via
<code>putp</code>. This fixes a scenario where
&ldquo;tput&nbsp;flash&rdquo; did not work after changes in
20130112.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>amend internal use of <code>tputs</code> to consistently
use the number of lines affected, e.g., for insert/delete
character operations. While merging terminfo source early in
1995, several descriptions used the
&ldquo;<code>*</code>&rdquo; proportional delay for these
operations, prompting a change in <code>doupdate</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct return-value of extended <code>putwin</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>double-width multibyte characters were not counted
properly in <code>winsnstr</code> and
<code>wins_nwstr</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>amend fix for <code>_nc_ripoffline</code> from 20091031 to
make <code>test/ditto.c</code> work in threaded
configuration.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>_nc_viscbuf2</code> and
<code>_tracecchar_t2</code> to trace wide-characters as a
whole rather than their multibyte equivalents.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>minor fix in <code>wadd_wchnstr</code> to ensure that each
cell has nonzero width.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>move <code>PUTC_INIT</code> calls next to
<code>wcrtomb</code> calls, to avoid carry-over of error
status when processing Unicode values which are not
mapped.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add missing assignment in <code>lib_getch.c</code> to make
<code>notimeout</code> work</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
improvements</a></h3>
<p>While reviewing user feedback, it became apparent that the
differences between <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html#h3-reset---reinitialization">
<span class="part-name">reset</span></a> (an alias for
<span class="part-name">tset</span>) and &ldquo;<span class=
"part-name">tput reset</span>&rdquo; were confusing:</p>
<ul>
<li>one (<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>)
updated the terminal modes, but used only part of the terminfo
capabilities for initialization, while</li>
<li>the other (<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html"><span class="part-name">tput</span></a>)
used all of the terminal capabilities while neglecting the
terminal modes.</li>
</ul>
<p>On further investigation, it turned out that the differences
were largely an accident due to the way those programs had
evolved.</p>
<p>This release eliminates the unnecessary differences, using the
same approach for <span class="part-name">tput</span>'s
<em>init</em> (initialization), <em>reset</em> and <em>clear</em>
operations as the separate <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html#h3-reset---reinitialization">
reset</a> and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html"><span class="part-name">
clear</span></a> programs. Doing this does not change the
command-line options; existing scripts are unaffected.</p>
<p>These are the user-visible changes for the three programs
(<span class="part-name">tput</span>, <span class=
"part-name">tset</span> and <span class=
"part-name">clear</span>):</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>add the terminal-mode parts of &ldquo;<span class=
"part-name">reset</span>&rdquo; (aka <span class=
"part-name">tset</span>) to the &ldquo;<code>tput
reset</code>&rdquo; command, making the two almost the same
except for window-size.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve <span class="part-name">tput</span>'s check for
being called as &ldquo;init&rdquo; or &ldquo;reset&rdquo; to
allow for transformed names.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add &ldquo;clear&rdquo; as a possible link/alias to
<span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>amend changes for <span class="part-name">tput</span> to
reset tty modes to &ldquo;sane&rdquo; if the program is run
as &ldquo;reset&rdquo;, like <span class=
"part-name">tset</span>. Likewise, ensure that <span class=
"part-name">tset</span> sends either reset- or
init-strings.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <code>-x</code> option to <span class=
"part-name">clear</span>/<span class="part-name">tput</span>
to make the <code>E3</code> extension optional</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add functionality of
&ldquo;<code>tset&nbsp;-w</code>&rdquo; to <span class=
"part-name">tput</span>, like the
&ldquo;<code>-c</code>&rdquo; feature this is not optional in
<span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add options <code>-T</code> and <code>-V</code> to
<span class="part-name">clear</span> command for
compatibility with <span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>drop long-obsolete &ldquo;<code>-n</code>&rdquo; option
from <span class="part-name">tset</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">tset</span>'s assignment to
<code>TERM</code> in its output to reflect the name by which
the terminal description is found, rather than the primary
name. That was an unnecessary part from the initial
conversion of <span class="part-name">tset</span> from
termcap to terminfo. The termcap library in 4.3BSD did this
to avoid using the short 2-character name</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>remove a restriction in <span class=
"part-name">tput</span>'s support for termcap names which
omitted capabilities normally not shown in termcap
translations</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add usage message to <span class="part-name">clear</span>
command</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve usage messages for <span class=
"part-name">tset</span> and <span class=
"part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Other user-visible improvements and new features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">tic</span>/<span class=
"part-name">infocmp</span> display of numeric values to use
hexadecimal when they are "close" to a power of two, making
the result more readable.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add &ldquo;<code>-W</code>&rdquo; option to <span class=
"part-name">tic</span>/<span class="part-name">infocmp</span>
to force long strings to wrap.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>This is in addition to the
&ldquo;<code>-w</code>&rdquo; option which attempts to
fit capabilities into a given line-length.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If &ldquo;<code>-f</code>&rdquo; option splits line,
do not further split it with
&ldquo;<code>-W</code>&rdquo;.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Begin a new line when adding
&ldquo;<code>use=</code>&rdquo; after a wrapped line.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>add &ldquo;<code>-q</code>&rdquo; option to <span class=
"part-name">infocmp</span> to suppress the
&ldquo;<code>Reconstructed from</code>&rdquo; comment from
the header, and a corresponding option to <span class=
"part-name">tic</span> to suppress all comments from the
&ldquo;<code>tic -I</code>&rdquo; output.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Sorted options in usage message for <span class=
"part-name">infocmp</span>, to make it simpler to see unused
letters.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Updated usage message for <span class=
"part-name">tic</span>, adding &ldquo;<code>-0</code>&rdquo;
option.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">infocmp</span>/<span class=
"part-name">tic</span> &ldquo;<code>-Q</code>&rdquo; option,
which allows one to dump the compiled form of the terminal
entry, in hexadecimal or base64:</p>
<ul>
<li>A &ldquo;<code>b64:</code>&rdquo; prefix in the
<code>TERMINFO</code> variable tells the terminfo reader to
use base64 according to RFC-3548 as well as RFC-4648
url/filename-safe format.</li>
<li>A &ldquo;<code>hex:</code>&rdquo; prefix tells the
terminfo reader to accept hexadecimal data as generated by
&ldquo;<code>infocmp -0qQ1</code>&rdquo;.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Other less-visible improvements and new features include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify utility headers such as <code>tic.h</code> to make
it clearer which are externals that are used by <span class=
"main-name">tack</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add &ldquo;<code>reset</code>&rdquo; to list of programs
whose names might change in manpages due to
program-transformation configure options.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify &ldquo;<code>-T</code>&rdquo; option of
<span class="part-name">clear</span> and <span class=
"part-name">tput</span> to call <code>use_tioctl</code> to
obtain the operating system's notion of the screensize if
possible.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add check in <span class="part-name">tput</span> for
init/reset operands to ensure those use a terminal.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify programs <span class="part-name">clear</span>,
<span class="part-name">tabs</span>, <span class=
"part-name">tput</span> and <span class=
"part-name">tset</span> to pass the actual tty file
descriptor to setupterm rather than the standard output or
error, making padding work.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>change <span class="part-name">tset</span>'s
initialization to allow it to get settings from the standard
input as well as <code>/dev/tty</code>, to be more effective
when output or error are redirected.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>amend check in <span class="part-name">tput</span>,
<span class="part-name">tabs</span> and <span class=
"part-name">clear</span> to allow those to use the
database-only features in <span class="part-name">cron</span>
if a &ldquo;<code>-T</code>&rdquo; option gives a suitable
terminal name.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve error message from <span class=
"part-name">tset</span>/<span class="part-name">reset</span>
when both stderr/stdout are redirected to a file or pipe.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Several of the less apparent features deal with translation of
terminfo to termcap (and the reverse), with corresponding checks
by <span class="part-name">tic</span>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify check in <code>fmt_entry</code> to handle a
cancelled reset string. Make similar fixes in other parts of
<code>dump_entry.c</code> and <code>tput.c</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct read of terminfo entry in which all strings are
absent or explicitly cancelled. Before this fix, the result
was that all were treated as only absent.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">infocmp</span> to suppress
mixture of absent/cancelled capabilities that would only show
as &ldquo;<code>NULL, NULL</code>&rdquo;, unless the
&ldquo;<code>-q</code>&rdquo; option is used, e.g., to show
&ldquo;<code>-, @</code>&rdquo; or &ldquo;<code>@,
-</code>&rdquo;.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct a warning from <span class="part-name">tic</span>
about keys which are the same, to skip over missing/cancelled
values.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for use of
bold, etc., video attributes in the color capabilities,
accounting whether the feature is listed in
<code>ncv</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for
unnecessary use of &ldquo;<code>2</code>&rdquo; to denote a
shifted special key.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for
delays by also warning about beep/flash when a delay is not
embedded, or if those use the VT100 reverse video escape
without using a delay.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve checks in <code>trim_sgr0</code>, comp_parse.c and
parse_entry.c, for cancelled string capabilities.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for some
syntax errors of delays, as well as use of proportional
delays for non-line capabilities.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add check in <span class="part-name">tic</span> for
conflict between <code>ritm</code>, <code>rmso</code>,
<code>rmul</code> versus <code>sgr0</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add check in <code>_nc_parse_entry</code> for invalid
entry name, setting the name to
&ldquo;<code>invalid</code>&rdquo; to avoid problems storing
entries.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve <code>_nc_tparm_analyze</code>, using that to
extend the checks made by <span class="part-name">tic</span>
for reporting inconsistencies between the expected number of
parameters for a capability and the actual.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>remove <span class="part-name">tic</span> warning about
&ldquo;<code>^?</code>&rdquo; in string capabilities, which
was marked as an extension; however all Unix implementations
support this and X/Open Curses does not address it. On the
other hand, <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#bsd42-ctl-question">
BSD termcap</a> did not support this feature (until the
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html#freebsd-ctl-question">
mid-1990s</a>).</p>
<p>in <code>_nc_infotocap</code>, added a check to ensure
that terminfo &ldquo;<code>^?</code>&rdquo; is not written to
termcap.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>sscanf</code> calls in
<code>_nc_infotocap</code> for patterns
&ldquo;<code>%{number}%+%c</code>&rdquo; and
&ldquo;<code>%'char'%+%c</code>&rdquo; to check that the
final character is really &ldquo;<code>c</code>&rdquo;,
avoiding a case in icl6404 which cannot be converted to
termcap.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>in <code>_nc_tic_expand</code> and
<code>_nc_infotocap</code>, improved string-length check when
deciding whether to use &ldquo;<code>^X</code>&rdquo; or
&ldquo;<code>\xxx</code>&rdquo; format for control
characters, to make the output of <span class=
"part-name">tic</span>/<span class="part-name">infocmp</span>
more predictable.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>limited termcap &ldquo;<code>%d</code>&rdquo; width to 2
digits on input, and use &ldquo;<code>%2</code>&rdquo; in
preference to &ldquo;<code>%02</code>&rdquo; on output.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct terminfo/termcap conversion of
&ldquo;<code>%02</code>&rdquo; and
&ldquo;<code>%03</code>&rdquo; into
&ldquo;<code>%2</code>&rdquo; and
&ldquo;<code>%3</code>&rdquo;; the result repeated the last
character.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>
<p>Along with the library and utilities, many improvements were
made to the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>.</p>
<p>These changes were made to demonstrate new extensions in
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">demo_new_pair</span> program,
to demonstrate <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/new_pair.3x.html#h3-alloc_pair">
<code>alloc_pair</code></a>, <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/new_pair.3x.html#h3-find_pair">
<code>find_pair</code></a> and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/new_pair.3x.html#h3-free_pair">
<code>free_pair</code></a> functions.</p>
<p>This program iterates over the possible color
combinations, allocating or initializing color pairs. For
best results, choose screen-width dividing evenly into the
number of colors. e.g.,</p>
<blockquote>
<table summary="sample layouts for demo_new_pair">
<tr>
<td><code>32x64,32x128</code>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
<td>256 colors</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>24x44,24x88</code></td>
<td>88 colors</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>32x64,24x128</code></td>
<td>16 colors</td>
</tr>
</table>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">extended_color</span> program,
like the older <span class="part-name">color_set</span>
program, but using the extended color functions, with and
without the SP-functions interface.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">picsmap</span> program to fill
in some testing issues not met by <span class=
"part-name">dots</span>, using this as the third example in a
comparison of the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html#compare_picsmap">
ncurses versus slang</a> libraries.</p>
<p>The program can directly read X bitmap and pixmap files,
displaying a picture. It can read other image files using
<span class="part-name">ImageMagick</span>'s <span class=
"part-name">convert</span> program to translate the image
into text.</p>
<p>For 16-, 88- and 256-color terminal descriptions,
<span class="part-name">picsmap</span> can load a palette
file which tells it which color palette entries to use. For
direct-colors, the terminal descriptions use the
<code>RGB</code> extension capability.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are other new example programs and a few scripts:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">dots_xcurses</span> program to
illustrate a different approach used for extended colors
which can be contrasted with <span class=
"part-name">dots_curses</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">list_keys</span> program show
function keys for one or more terminal descriptions. It uses
<span class="main-name">ncurses'</span>s convention of
modifiers for special keys, based on xterm.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">padview</span> program, to
compare pads with direct updates in the <span class=
"part-name">view</span> program.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">sp_tinfo</span> program to
exercise the SP-functions extension of the low-level terminfo
library.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add test-programs for <code>termattrs</code> and
<code>term_attrs</code> functions.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">test_sgr</span> program to
exercise all combinations of the sgr capability.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">tput-colorcube</span> demo
script, imitating xterm's 88- and 256-color scripts using
<span class="part-name">tput</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <span class="part-name">tput-initc</span> script to
demonstrate how <span class="part-name">tput</span> may be
used to initialize a color palette from a data file.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>A variety of improvements were made to existing programs, both
new features as well as options added to make the set of programs
more consistent.</p>
<p>The <span class="part-name">ncurses</span> program is the
largest; a proportionately large number of changes were made to
it:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify a/A screens to make exiting on an escape character
depend on the start of keypad and timeout modes, to allow
better testing of function-keys.</p>
<p>add &ldquo;<code>t</code>&rdquo; toggle for
<code>notimeout</code> function.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify layout of b/B screens to allow for additional
annotation on the right margin; some terminals with partial
support did not display well.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify c/C screens to allow for extended color pairs.</p>
<p>add z/Z <em>zoom</em> feature to make extended color pairs
easier to test.</p>
<p>modify test-screens to take advantage of wide screens,
reducing the number of lines used for 88- and 256-colors.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify &ldquo;<code>d</code>&rdquo; edit-color screen to
optionally read xterm color palette directly from terminal,
as well as handling <code>KEY_RESIZE</code> and
screen-repainting with control/L and control/R.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add examples to &ldquo;<code>F</code>&rdquo; screen for
<code>WACS_D_PLUS</code> and <code>WACS_T_PLUS</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve &ldquo;<code>g</code>&rdquo; screen, correcting
ifdef which made the legend not reflect changes to keypad-
and scroll-modes. Added check for return-value of
<code>putwin</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>make &ldquo;<code>s</code>&rdquo; test easier to
understand which subtests are available</p>
<p>add a corresponding &ldquo;<code>S</code>&rdquo;
wide-character overlap test-screen.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add &ldquo;<code>v</code>&rdquo; screen to show
<code>baudrate</code> and other values.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>These changes were made to the other examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">blue</span> program to use
Unicode values for card-glyphs when available, as well as
improving the check for CP437 and CP850.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve <span class="part-name">demo_menus</span> program,
allowing mouse-click on the menu-headers to switch the active
menu. This requires a new extension option
<code>O_MOUSE_MENU</code> to tell the menu driver to put
mouse events which do not apply to the active menu back into
the queue so that the application can handle the event.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct logic in <span class=
"part-name">demo_terminfo</span> program for
&ldquo;<code>-f</code>&rdquo; option</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">ditto</span> program to
allow <code>$XTERM_PROG</code> environment variable to
override "xterm" as the name of the program to run in the
threaded configuration.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add several options to the &ldquo;<em>dots</em>&rdquo;
test-programs.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">filter</span> program:</p>
<ul>
<li>illustrate an alternative to <code>getnstr</code>, that
polls for input while updating a clock on the right margin
as well as responding to window size-changes.</li>
<li>adapt logic used in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/dialog/"><span class=
"main-name">dialog</span></a> <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/dialog/manpage/dialog.html#h3-Common-Options">
&ldquo;<code>--keep-tite</code>&rdquo; option</a> for
<span class="part-name">filter</span> program as the "-a"
option. When set, <span class="part-name">filter</span>
attempts to suppress the alternate screen.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">knight</span> program to
provide the "slow" solution for small screens using
&ldquo;<code>R</code>&rdquo;, noting that Warnsdorf's method
is easily done with &ldquo;<code>a</code>&rdquo;.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify the <span class="part-name">savescreen</span>
program to add test patterns that exercise 88-, 256-, etc.,
colors.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add options to <span class="part-name">test_arrays</span>,
for selecting termcap vs terminfo, etc.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify the <span class="part-name">view</span>
program:</p>
<ul>
<li>expand tabs using the ncurses library rather than in
the test-program.</li>
<li>eliminate the &ldquo;<code>-n</code>&rdquo; option by
simply reading the whole file.</li>
<li>implement page up/down commands.</li>
<li>remove the very old <code>SIGWINCH</code> example; just
use <code>KEY_RESIZE</code>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve animation in <span class="part-name">xmas</span>
program by adding a time-delay in <code>blinkit</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify several test-programs which call
<code>use_default_colors</code> to consistently do this only
if the &ldquo;<code>-d</code>&rdquo; option is given.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify the install-rule for ncurses-examples to put the
data files in the data directory, e.g.,
<code>/usr/share/ncurses-examples</code>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify several test programs to use new
<code>popup_msgs</code> function, adapted from the
help-screen used in the <code>edit_field</code> program.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify test data for xterm palettes to use the newer
color4/color12 values.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve the <span class="part-name">tracemunch</span>
script:</p>
<ul>
<li>show screenXX pointers and thread identifiers as
names.</li>
<li>chang address-parameters of <code>add_wch</code>,
<code>color_content</code> and <code>pair_content</code> to
dummy parameters.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal
database</a></h3>
<p>There are several new terminal descriptions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><code>dumb-emacs-ansi</code>, <code>dvtm</code>,
<code>dvtm-256color</code>, <code>fbterm</code>,
<code>iterm2</code>, <code>linux-m1</code> <em>minitel
entries</em>, <code>putty-noapp</code>, <code>viewdata</code>,
and <code>vt100+4bsd</code> <em>building-block</em>.</p>
<p><code>xterm+noalt</code>, <code>xterm+titlestack</code>,
<code>xterm+alt1049</code>, <code>xterm+alt+title</code>
<em>building blocks</em> and <code>xterm+direct</code>,
<code>xterm+indirect</code>, <code>xterm-direct</code>. from
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_331">xterm
patch #331</a>.</p>
<p>several other &ldquo;<code>-direct</code>&rdquo;
descriptions to address the differences of other terminal
emulators versus <code>xterm-direct</code>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
were updates to several descriptions:</p>
<ul>
<li>use <code>xterm+sm+1006</code> in several terminal
descriptions which were validated as supporting the extended
mouse feature for their respective terminal emulators.</li>
<li>corrected <em>sgr</em>/<em>sgr0</em> strings in a few cases
reported by <span class="part-name">tic</span>, making those
correspond to the non-<em>sgr</em> settings where they differ,
but otherwise use ECMA-48 consistently.</li>
<li>add 0.1sec mandatory delay to <em>flash</em> capabilities
using the VT100 reverse-video control</li>
</ul>
<p>while others affected specific descriptions. These were
retested, to take into account new/undocumented changes by their
developers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><code>iterm</code>, <code>minitel</code>, <code>st</code>,
<code>viewdata</code>, <code>nsterm</code></p>
</blockquote>
<p>while these are specific fixes based on user reports, or
warnings from <span class="part-name">tic</span>:</p>
<dl>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_A_N_S_I__S_Y_S__I_S_O_6429__E_C_M_A-48__Capabilities">
<code>ansi</code> <em>building blocks</em></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>restored <em>rmir</em>/<em>smir</em> in
<code>ansi+idc</code> to better match original
<code>ansiterm+idc</code>, add alias
<code>ansiterm</code></li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-icl6404">
<code>icl6402</code></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>corrected missing comma-separator between string
capabilities in <code>icl6402</code> and
<code>m2-nam</code></li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-interix">
<code>interix</code></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>updated using <span class="main-name">tack</span> and
SFU with Windows 7 Ultimate.</li>
<li>used <code>^?</code> for <em>kdch1</em></li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_Linux_consoles">
<code>linux</code></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>made <code>linux3.0</code> entry the default
<strong><code>linux</code></strong> entry</li>
<li>modify <code>linux2.6</code> entry to improve
line-drawing so that the <code>linux3.0</code> entry can be
used in non-UTF-8 mode</li>
<li>omitted selection of ISO-8859-1 for G0 in enacs
capability from linux2.6 entry, to avoid conflict with the
user-defined mapping. The reset feature uses ISO-8859-1 in
any case.</li>
<li>modify <em>flash</em> capability for <code>linux</code>
and <code>wyse</code> entries to put the delay between the
reverse/normal escapes rather than after</li>
<li>modify <code>linux-16color</code> to not mask dim,
standout or reverse with the <em>ncv</em> capability</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_Open_B_S_D_consoles">
<code>pccon</code> <em>entries</em></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>fixed some inconsistencies in the
<code><em>pccon*</em></code> entries</li>
<li>add bold to <code>pccon+sgr+acs</code> and
<code>pccon-base</code></li>
<li>add keys f12-f124 to <code>pccon+keys</code></li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_Tmux">
<code>tmux</code></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>corrected <em>sgr</em> string, which used
<code>screen</code>'s "standout" code rather than the
standard code.</li>
<li>add settings corresponding to <code>xterm-keys</code>
option to reflect upcoming change to make that option
<em>"on"</em> by default</li>
<li>uncanceled <em>Ms</em></li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_D_E_C__V_T100_and_compatibles">
<code>vt100</code></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>modify <code>vt100</code> <em>rs2</em> string to reset
vt52 mode and scrolling regions</li>
<li>corrected <em>rs2</em> string for
<code>vt100-nam</code></li>
<li>made minor fixes for <code>vt100+4bsd</code>, e.g.,
delay in <em>sgr</em> for consistency</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_G_N_O_M_E__V_T_E_">
<code>vte</code></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>moved SGR 24 and 27 from <code>vte-2014</code> to
<code>vte-2012</code></li>
<li>add a few capabilities fixed in recent <em>VTE</em>
development</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#toc-_X_T_E_R_M">
<code>xterm</code></a></dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>add <em>rep</em> to <code>xterm-new</code>, available
since <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_32">
late 1996</a>.</li>
<li>modify <code>xterm+256color</code> and
<code>xterm+256setaf</code> to use correct number of color
pairs.</li>
<li>modify <em>rs1</em> for <code>xterm-16color</code>,
<code>xterm-88color</code> and <code>xterm-256color</code>
to reset palette using <em>oc</em> string as in
<code>linux</code> entry.</li>
<li>add <em>rs1</em> capability to
<code>xterm-256color</code></li>
<li>add <em>oc</em> capability to
<code>xterm+256color</code>, allowing palette reset for
<span class="main-name">xterm</span></li>
<li>add <em>op</em> to <code>xterm+256setaf</code></li>
<li>modify <code>xterm-r5</code>, <code>xterm-r6</code> and
<code>xterm-xf86-v32</code> to use <code>xterm+kbs</code>
to match <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.log.html#xterm_272">
xterm #272</a>, reflecting packager's changes</li>
<li>used ANSI reply for <em>u8</em> in
<code>xterm-new</code>, to reflect vt220-style responses
that could be returned.</li>
<li>made <code>xterm-pcolor</code> <em>sgr</em> consistent
with other capabilities</li>
</ul>
</dd>
</dl>
<p>A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
capabilities):</p>
<ul>
<li>add <em>rmxx</em>/<em>smxx</em> ECMA-48 strikeout extension
to <code>tmux</code> and <code>xterm-basic</code></li>
<li>used <em>RGB</em> capability in new <em>*-direct</em>
entries to denote direct-color feature.</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 particular,</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Since the underlying features for <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-HISTORY">
<span class="part-name">tset</span></a>, <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-HISTORY">
<span class="part-name">tput</span></a>, and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-HISTORY">
<span class="part-name">clear</span></a> have been better
integrated, the documentation now includes information on how
those tools evolved.</p>
<p>In addition to explaining the improved integration of the
tools, the manual pages made it easier to see how the tools
are similar and how they are different.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <code>addch</code> manual page has additional
information on <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
portability</a> and differences from other
implementations.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The discussion of color-pairs in the <em>attributes</em>
manual page is improved in its <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">
history section</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The documentation of the <code>chtype</code>,
<code>cchar_t</code> types and the attribute values which can
be stored in those types, in particular the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-HISTORY">
history</a> and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
portability</a> sections of the <em>attributes</em> manual
page, has been improved.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve discussion of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_mouse.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
portability</a> in the <em>mouse</em> manual.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <em>pad</em> manual page has a section on the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_pad.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
origin and portability</a> of pads.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Differences between SVr4 and X/Open Curses soft-keys are
discussed in a new section on <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_slk.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
portability</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>There are updated/improved notes on portability in the
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
resizeterm</a> and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/wresize.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
wresize</a> 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>add note in the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h3-ACS-Symbols">
<em>addch</em></a> manual about line-drawing when it depends
upon UTF-8.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve discussion of line-drawing characters in the
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_add_wch.3x.html">
<em>add_wch</em></a> manual.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>explain in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/clear.1.html#h2-DESCRIPTION">
<span class="part-name">clear</span></a>'s manual page that
it writes to the standard output.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve description of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_initscr.3x.html#h3-endwin">
<em>endwin</em></a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve discussion of field validation in the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_driver.3x.html">
<em>form driver</em></a> manual page.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>clarify the use of <code>wint_t</code> vs
<code>wchar_t</code> in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_get_wstr.3x.html#h2-RETURN-VALUE">
<em>get_wstr</em></a> manual page.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>clarify in the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getch.3x.html#h3-Predefined-key-codes">
<em>getch</em></a> manual that the keypad mode affects an
application's ability to read <code>KEY_MOUSE</code> codes,
but does not affect <code>KEY_RESIZE</code>.</p>
<p>trim some obsolete/incorrect wording about
<code>EINTR</code> from the <em>getch</em> manual page</p>
<p>improve manual pages for <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_getch.3x.html#h3-Keypad-Mode">
<em>getch</em></a> and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_get_wch.3x.html#h2-DESCRIPTION">
<em>get_wch</em></a> to point out that they might return
user-defined values which have no predefined names in
<code>&lt;curses.h&gt;</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve description of the <code>-R</code> option in the
<a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
infocmp</span></a> manual page</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>clarify in the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/resizeterm.3x.html#h2-NOTES">
<em>resizeterm</em></a> manual page how
<code>KEY_RESIZE</code> is pushed onto the input stream.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>document return value of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_extend.3x#h2-RETURN-VALUE">
<code>use_extended_names</code></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>document differences in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_variables.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
<code>ESCDELAY</code></a> versus AIX's implementation in the
<em>variables</em> manual page.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <code>_nc_free_tinfo</code> function is now documented
in the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">
<em>memory-leaks</em></a> manual page, because it could be
used in <span class="main-name">tack</span> for memory-leak
checking.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add a note to the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html"><span class="part-name">
tic</span></a> manual page about -W versus -f options.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve <em>terminfo manual</em> description of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Terminfo-Capabilities-Syntax">
terminfo syntax</a>.</p>
<p>improve terminfo manual page discussion of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Line-Graphics">
control- and graphics- characters</a>.</p>
<p>improve <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Color-Handling">
color-handling</a> section in terminfo manual page</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>clarify description in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html#h2-PORTABILITY">
<span class="part-name">tput</span></a> manual page regarding
support for termcap names</p>
<p>update <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tput.1.html#h3-Aliases">
<span class="part-name">tput</span></a> manual page to
reflect changes to manipulate terminal modes by sharing
functions with <span class="part-name">tset</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>clarify in manual pages that the optional verbose option
level of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tic.1m.html#h2-OPTIONS">
<span class="part-name">tic</span></a> and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/infocmp.1m.html#h3-Other-Options">
<span class="part-name">infocmp</span></a> is available only
when <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> is configured for
tracing.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve manual page description of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/tset.1.html"><em>tset/reset</em></a>
versus window-size.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve description of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_termcap.3x.html#h3-FORMATTING-CAPABILITIES">
<em>tgoto</em></a> parameters</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are new manual pages:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/user_caps.5.html"><em>
user_caps</em></a> documents the terminfo extensions used by
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span>.</li>
<li>
<p><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/scr_dump.5.html"><em>
scr_dump</em></a> documents the screen-dump format.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way
the information is presented:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Made minor fixes to manpage <em>NAME/SYNOPSIS</em>
sections to consistently use rule that either all functions
which are prototyped in <em>SYNOPSIS</em> are listed in the
<em>NAME</em> section, or the manual-page name is the sole
item listed in the <em>NAME</em> section. The latter is used
to reduce clutter, e.g., for the top-level library manual
pages as well as for certain feature-pages such as <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_sp_funcs.3x.html">
<em>SP-funcs</em></a> and <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_threads.3x.html">
<em>threading</em></a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve manual pages for utilities with respect to POSIX
versus X/Open Curses.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve organization of the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_attr.3x.html"><em>
attributes</em></a> and <a href=
"/ncurses/man/curs_color.3x.html"><em>color</em></a> manual
pages.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
bug-fixes</a></h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify <span class="part-name">toe</span> to not exit if
unable to read a terminal description, e.g., if there is a
permission problem.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct 20100515 change for weak signals versus
sigprocmask</p>
</li>
<li>work around Ada tool-breakage in Debian 9 and later by
invoking <code>gprconfig</code> to specify the C compiler to be
used by <code>gnatmake</code>, and conditionally suppressing
<code>Library_Options</code> line for static libraries.</li>
<li>
<p>There were, as well, several bug-fixes to handle illegal
input for <span class="part-name">tic</span>. Because those
did not correspond to useful terminal descriptions, most
users are unaffected.</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>This release provides a new binary format for terminal
descriptions that use extended numeric capabilities. Applications
built with the wide-character <em>ncursesw</em> library can use
these extended numbers.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>This includes utilities such as <span class=
"part-name">tic</span> and <span class=
"part-name">infocmp</span>, because (as noted in <a href=
"#h4-new-library"><em>New features</em></a>), the feature
relies upon an extension to the low-level <em>tinfo</em>
library.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A few software packagers use a configuration option of
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> which allows the
low-level <em>tinfo</em> library to be shared between the
high-level <em>ncurses</em> and <em>ncursesw</em> libraries.
This new feature was designed to work in that configuration
as well.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Other applications (i.e., using the 8-bit <em>ncurses</em>
library) which read the extended terminal descriptions see those
numeric capabilities set to the maximum value for a signed 16-bit
number.</p>
<p>Older versions of <span class="main-name">ncurses</span>'
<span class="part-name">tic</span> accept out-of-range numeric
capabilities, storing those as the maximum value for a signed
16-bit number. Other implementations of curses (mentioned in the
discussion of <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-slang.html#compare_picsmap">
<span class="part-name">picsmap</span></a>) give zero for these
out-of-range capabilities.</p>
<h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
"h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>
<p>These changes provide support for <span class=
"main-name">tack</span> 1.08, released in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack/CHANGES.html#index-t20170726">
July 2017</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>add <code>--without-tack</code> configure option to refine
<code>--with-progs</code> configure option. Normally
<span class="main-name">tack</span> is built outside the
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> tree, but a few
packagers combine it during the build. If
<code>term_entry.h</code> is installed, there is no advantage
to in-tree builds.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>adjust configure-script to define
<code>HAVE_CURSES_DATA_BOOLNAMES</code> symbol needed for
<span class="main-name">tack</span> 1.08 when built in-tree.
Rather than relying upon internal "_nc_" functions,
<span class="main-name">tack</span> now uses the boolean,
number and string capability name-arrays provided by
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> and SVr4 Unix curses.
It still uses <code>term_entry.h</code> for the definitions
of the extended capability arrays.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add dependency upon ncurses_cfg.h to <span class=
"part-name">tic</span>'s header-files; any program using
<span class="part-name">tic</span>-library will have to
supply this file. Legacy <span class="main-name">tack</span>
versions supply this file; ongoing <span class=
"main-name">tack</span> development has dropped the
dependency upon <span class="part-name">tic</span>-library
and new releases will not be affected.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Other changes to the configure-script and generated files
include</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>add configure options to disable checks for form, menu and
panel libraries so that ncurses-examples can be built with
non-SVr4 curses implementations.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add configure option <code>--enable-opaque-curses</code>
for <em>ncurses</em> library and similar options for the
other libraries.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add configure option <code>--disable-wattr-macros</code>
for use in cases where one wants to use the same headers for
ncurses5/ncurses6 development, by suppressing the
<em>wattr*</em> macros which differ due to the introduction
of extended colors</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure macro for shared-library rules to use
<code>-Wl,-rpath</code> rather than <code>-rpath</code> to
work around a bug in <span class="part-name">scons</span></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve ncurses-examples' configure script to define as
needed <code>NCURSES_WIDECHAR</code> for platforms where
<code>_XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED</code> does not work. Also
modified the test program to ensure that if building with
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span>, that the
<code>cchar_t</code> type is checked, since that is normally
(since <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20111030">20111030</a>)
ifdef'd depending on this test.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure script to handle the case where
<span class="part-name">tic</span>-library is renamed, but
the <code>--with-debug</code> option is used by itself
without normal or shared libraries</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify editing script which generates resulting.map to
work with the clang configuration on recent FreeBSD, which
gives an error on an empty "local" section.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve configure check for setting the
<code>WILDCARD_SYMS</code> variable; on ppc64 the variable is
in the <strong><em>Data</em></strong> section rather than
<strong><em>Text</em></strong>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>correct result of configure option
<code>--without-fallbacks</code>, which caused FALLBACK_LIST
to be set to "no"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify <code>--with-pkg-config-libdir</code> option to
make it possible to install &ldquo;.pc&rdquo; files even if
<span class="part-name">pkg-config</span> is not found. Limit
this change, to suppress the actual install if it is not
overridden to a valid directory at install time.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>disallow &ldquo;no&rdquo; as a possible value for
<code>--with-shlib-version</code> option, overlooked in
cleanup-changes for <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/NEWS.html#t20000708">20000708</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<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>improve configure script's <code>CF_CC_ENV_FLAGS</code>
macro to allow for compiler wrappers such as <span class=
"part-name">ccache</span>. This change moves only the
preprocessor, optimization and warning flags to
<code>CPPFLAGS</code> and <code>CFLAGS</code>, leaving the
residue in <code>CC</code>. That happens to work for
<span class="part-name">gcc</span>'s various
&ldquo;model&rdquo; options, but may require tuning for other
compilers.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify ncurses-examples' configure script to use
<span class="part-name">pkg-config</span> for the extra
form/menu/panel libraries, to be more consistent with the
handling of the curses/ncurses library.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add configuration checks to build with <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-netbsd.html">NetBSD
curses</a>, which for example lacks <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-use_env">
<code>use_env</code></a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>change ncurses-examples to use <code>attr_t</code> vs
<code>chtype</code> to follow X/Open documentation more
closely since Solaris xpg4-curses uses different values for
<code>WA_<em>xxx</em></code> vs <code>A_<em>xxx</em></code>
that rely on attr_t being an unsigned short. Tru64 aka OSF1,
HPUX, AIX did as <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> does,
equating the two sets.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify several test programs to reflect that <span class=
"main-name">ncurses</span> honors existing signal handlers in
initscr, while other implementations do not.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add configure check for <code>openpty</code> to
ncurses-examples' configure script, for <span class=
"part-name">ditto</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve check for working <code>poll</code> function by
using <code>posix_openpt</code> as a fallback in case there
is no valid terminal on the standard input</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify ncurses-examples' configure script to check for
<span class="part-name">pthread</span> dependency of
<em>ncursest</em> or <em>ncursestw</em> library when building
the <span class="main-name">ncurses</span> examples, e.g., in
case weak symbols are used.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add checks in ncurses-examples' configure script for some
functions neither in 4.3BSD curses, nor based on X/Open
Curses:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>modify a loop limit in firework.c to work around
absense of limit checks in some libraries.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>fill the last row of a window with
&ldquo;<code>?</code>&rdquo; in firstlast if waddch does
not return <code>ERR</code> on the lower-right
corner.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>build-fixes for the Portland Group (PGI) compilers</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>accept whitespace in <span class=
"part-name">sed</span> expression for generating
expanded.c</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure check that g++ compiler warnings are
not used.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add configure check for -fPIC option needed for shared
libraries.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify configure script for clang as used on FreeBSD, to
work around clang's differences in exit codes vs gcc.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>fixes for configure/build using clang on OSX</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>do not redefine &ldquo;inline&rdquo; in
<code>ncurses_cfg.h</code>; this was originally to solve
a problem with gcc/g++, but is aggravated by clang's
misuse of symbols to pretend it is gcc.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add braces to configure script to prevent unwanted
addition of &ldquo;<code>-lstdc++</code>&rdquo; option to
the <code>CXXLIBS</code> symbol.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>improve/update test-program used for checking
existence of stdc++ library.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>if <code>$CXXLIBS</code> is set, the linkage test uses
that in addition to <code>$LIBS</code>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>fixes for OS/2:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>use button instead of <code>kbuf[0]</code> in
EMX-specific part of <code>lib_mouse.c</code></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>support building with <span class=
"part-name">libtool</span> on OS/2</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>use stdc++ library with OS/2 kLIBC</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>clear configure script's <code>cf_XOPEN_SOURCE</code>
for OS/2, to work with its header files</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>add &ldquo;newer&rdquo; baudrate symbols to the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/curs_termattrs.3x.html#h3-baudrate">
<code>baudrate</code></a> function in the ncurses library as
well as to a corresponding table in <span class=
"part-name">tset</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>modify ncurses-examples <span class=
"part-name">savescreen</span> to work with AIX and HPUX.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>define <code>WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN</code> for MinGW port,
making builds faster.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add a configure check for <em>wcwidth</em> versus the
<span class="main-name">ncurses</span> line-drawing
characters, to use in special-casing systems such as Solaris.
Solaris, however, requires a special case that maps Unicode
line-drawing characters into the acsc string for non-Unicode
locales. Solaris also has a misconfigured wcwidth which marks
all of the line drawing characters as double-width.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>string-hacks (non-standard):</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>fix configure script to record when
<code>strlcat</code> is found on OpenBSD.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>add <code>--enable-string-hacks</code> option to
ncurses-examples' configure script.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>completed string-hacks for <em>sprintf</em>, etc.,
including the ncurses-examples programs.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>make <code>--enable-string-hacks</code> option work
with Debian by checking for the "bsd" library and its
associated "&lt;bsd/string.h&gt;" header.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>workaround for Debian's antique/unmaintained version of
mawk:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>see Debian #65617, which was fixed in <span class=
"main-name">mawk</span>'s upstream releases in <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/mawk/CHANGES.html#t20090727">
2009</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>related fixes when building link_test.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</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 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).</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 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&amp;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 have 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.mit.edu/">https://mosh.mit.edu/</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>vi-like-emacs 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. J&uuml;rgen Pfeifer wrote most of
the form and menu libraries. Ongoing development work is done by
<a href="mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas Dickey</a>.
Thomas Dickey also acts as the maintainer for the Free Software
Foundation, which holds the <a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-license.html">copyright
on ncurses</a>.</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>&lt;name&gt;@&lt;host.domain&gt;</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> and
patches to the current release are made available at</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href=
"ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>
and<br>
<a href=
"https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/</a>&nbsp;.</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/tack.html">tack &ndash;
terminfo action checker</a></li>
<li><a href=
"https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html">tctest
&ndash; 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>&nbsp;. 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>&nbsp;.</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>
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