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  38   <title>Announcing ncurses 5.9</title>
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  45   <h1>Announcing ncurses 5.9</h1>The ncurses (new curses)
  46   library is a free software emulation of curses in System V
  47   Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, supports pads and
  48   color and multiple highlights and forms characters and
  49   function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses
  50   enhancements over BSD curses.
  51
  52   <p>In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
  53   that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
  54   keepers of Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to
  55   switch over to ncurses.</p>
  56
  57   <p>The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It has been in
  58   use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library, and
  59   on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package. It should port
  60   easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported
  61   to OS/2 Warp!</p>
  62
  63   <p>The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
  64   including a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1),
  65   clear(1), tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool
  66   captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for the library and
  67   tools.</p>
  68
  69   <p>The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the
  70   GNU distribution site <a href=
  71   "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a>&nbsp;.<br>
  72
  73   It is also available at <a href=
  74   "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>&nbsp;.</p>
  75
  76   <h1>Release Notes</h1>This release is designed to be upward
  77   compatible from ncurses 5.0 through 5.8; very few applications
  78   will require recompilation, depending on the platform. These are
  79   the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.8 release.
  80   <p>
  81   This is a bug-fix release, correcting a small number of urgent problems
  82   in the ncurses library from the 5.8 release.
  83   <p>
  84   It also improves the Ada95 binding:
  85   <ul>
  86   <li>fixes a longstanding portability problem with its use of the
  87       <a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_fieldtype.3x">set_field_type</a>
  88       function.  Because that function uses variable-length argument lists,
  89       its interface with gnat does not work with certain platforms.
  90   <li>improves configurability and portability, particularly when built
  91       separately from the main ncurses tree.  The 5.8 release introduced
  92       scripts which can be used to construct separate tarballs for the
  93       Ada95 and ncurses examples.
  94       <p>Those were a proof of concept.  For the 5.9 release, those
  95       scripts are augmented with rpm- and dpkg-scripts used in test builds
  96       against a variety of gnat- and system ncurses versions as old as
  97       gnat 3.15 and ncurses 5.4 (see snapshots and systems tested
  98       <a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-Ada95.html">here</a>.
  99   <li>additional improvements were made for portability of the
 100       ncurses examples, adding rpm- and dpkg-scripts for test-builds.
 101       See
 102       <a href="http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">this page</a>
 103       for snapshots and other information.
 104   </ul>
 105
 106   <h1>Features of Ncurses</h1>The ncurses package is fully
 107   compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
 108
 109   <ul>
 110     <li>All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
 111     documented).</li>
 112
 113     <li>Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard
 114     mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and
 115     automatic recognition of keypad and function keys.</li>
 116
 117     <li>An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack
 118     of windows with backing store, is included.</li>
 119
 120     <li>An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a
 121     uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is
 122     included.</li>
 123
 124     <li>An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data
 125     collection through on-screen forms, is included.</li>
 126
 127     <li>Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1)
 128     implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format
 129     SVr4 curses uses.</li>
 130
 131     <li>The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
 132     entries for use with less capable
 133     <strong>curses</strong>/<strong>terminfo</strong> versions such
 134     as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</li>
 135   </ul>The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over
 136   SVr4:
 137
 138   <ul>
 139     <li>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the
 140     X/OPEN curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements
 141     all BASE level features, and most EXTENDED features). It
 142     includes many function calls not supported under SVr4 curses
 143     (but portability of all calls is documented so you can use the
 144     SVr4 subset only).</li>
 145
 146     <li>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the
 147     rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if your terminal has
 148     an insert-character capability.</li>
 149
 150     <li>Ada95 and C++ bindings.</li>
 151
 152     <li>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and
 153     FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.</li>
 154
 155     <li>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm
 156     package.</li>
 157
 158     <li>The function <code>wresize</code> allows you to resize
 159     windows, preserving their data.</li>
 160
 161     <li>The function <code>use_default_colors</code> allows you to
 162     use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
 163     achieving the effect of transparent colors.</li>
 164
 165     <li>The functions <code>keyok</code> and
 166     <code>define_key</code> allow you to better control the use of
 167     function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by
 168     defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key
 169     code.</li>
 170
 171     <li>Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when
 172     configured using the <code>--enable-ext-colors</code>
 173     option.</li>
 174
 175     <li>Support for 16-color terminals, such as <em>aixterm</em>
 176     and <em>modern xterm</em>.</li>
 177
 178     <li>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now
 179     features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient
 180     than either BSD's or System V's.</li>
 181
 182     <li>Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code
 183     incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables
 184     it to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion,
 185     and line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is
 186     more powerful than the 4.4BSD curses <code>quickch</code>
 187     routine.</li>
 188
 189     <li>Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch.
 190     The screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if
 191     the magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the
 192     beginning and after the end would step on a non-space
 193     character. It will automatically shift highlight boundaries
 194     when doing so would make it possible to draw the highlight
 195     without changing the visual appearance of the screen.</li>
 196
 197     <li>It is possible to generate the library with a list of
 198     pre-loaded fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve
 199     those terminal types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file
 200     is accessible (this may be useful for support of
 201     screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user
 202     mode).</li>
 203
 204     <li>The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
 205     ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
 206     AT&amp;T extension sets.</li>
 207
 208     <li>A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.</li>
 209
 210     <li>The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read
 211     terminfo entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile
 212     to that directory if it exists and the user has no write access
 213     to the system directory. This feature makes it easier for users
 214     to have personal terminfo entries without giving up access to
 215     the system terminfo directory.</li>
 216
 217     <li>You may specify a path of directories to search for
 218     compiled descriptions with the environment variable
 219     TERMINFO_DIRS (this generalizes the feature provided by
 220     TERMINFO under stock System V.)</li>
 221
 222     <li>In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not
 223     just to other entries in the same source file (as in System V)
 224     but also to compiled entries in either the system terminfo
 225     directory or the user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.</li>
 226
 227     <li>A script (<strong>capconvert</strong>) is provided to help
 228     BSD users transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the
 229     information in a TERMCAP environment variable and/or a
 230     ~/.termcap local entries file and converts it to an equivalent
 231     local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo.</li>
 232
 233     <li>Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled
 234     in when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This
 235     feature is neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it
 236     unless you have to, but it's there.</li>
 237
 238     <li>The table-of-entries utility <strong>toe</strong> makes it
 239     easy for users to see exactly what terminal types are available
 240     on the system.</li>
 241
 242     <li>The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro
 243     entry point have a corresponding function which may be linked
 244     (and will be prototype-checked) if the macro definition is
 245     disabled with <code>#undef</code>.</li>
 246
 247     <li>An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document
 248     provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming
 249     interface.</li>
 250   </ul>
 251
 252   <h1>State of the Package</h1>Numerous bugs present in earlier
 253   versions have been fixed; the library is far more reliable than
 254   it used to be. Bounds checking in many `dangerous' entry points
 255   has been improved. The code is now type-safe according to gcc
 256   -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks and arena
 257   corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.
 258
 259   <p>The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of
 260   applications including (versions starting with those noted):</p>
 261
 262   <dl>
 263     <dt>cdk</dt>
 264
 265     <dd>Curses Development Kit<br>
 266     <a href=
 267     "http://invisible-island.net/cdk/">http://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br>
 268
 269     <a href=
 270     "http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/">http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/</a></dd>
 271
 272     <dt>ded</dt>
 273
 274     <dd>directory-editor<br>
 275     <a href=
 276     "http://invisible-island.net/ded/">http://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></dd>
 277
 278     <dt>dialog</dt>
 279
 280     <dd>the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and
 281     the basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux.<br>
 282     <a href=
 283     "http://invisible-island.net/dialog/">http://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></dd>
 284
 285     <dt>lynx</dt>
 286
 287     <dd>the character-screen WWW browser<br>
 288     <a href=
 289     "http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release/</a></dd>
 290
 291     <dt>Midnight Commander</dt>
 292
 293     <dd>file manager<br>
 294     <a href=
 295     "http://www.midnight-commander.org/">http://www.midnight-commander.org/</a></dd>
 296
 297     <dt>mutt</dt>
 298
 299     <dd>mail utility<br>
 300     <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></dd>
 301
 302     <dt>ncftp</dt>
 303
 304     <dd>file-transfer utility<br>
 305     <a href="http://www.ncftp.com/">http://www.ncftp.com/</a></dd>
 306
 307     <dt>nvi</dt>
 308
 309     <dd>New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7
 310     and later.<br>
 311     <a href=
 312     "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi</a><br>
 313     </dd>
 314
 315     <dt>pinfo</dt>
 316
 317     <dd>Lynx-like info browser. <a href=
 318     "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/</a></dd>
 319
 320     <dt>tin</dt>
 321
 322     <dd>newsreader, supporting color, MIME <a href=
 323     "http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></dd>
 324   </dl>as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support
 325   alone:
 326
 327   <dl>
 328     <dt>minicom</dt>
 329
 330     <dd>terminal emulator<br>
 331     <a href=
 332     "http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></dd>
 333
 334     <dt>vile</dt>
 335
 336     <dd>vi-like-emacs<br>
 337     <a href=
 338     "http://invisible-island.net/vile/">http://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></dd>
 339   </dl>
 340
 341   <p>The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs
 342   (including a few games).</p>
 343
 344   <h2>Who's Who and What's What</h2>Zeyd Ben-Halim started it from
 345   a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S.
 346   Raymond continued development. J&uuml;rgen Pfeifer wrote most of
 347   the form and menu libraries. Ongoing work is being done by
 348   <a href="mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas Dickey</a>.
 349   Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the Free Software
 350   Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses. Contact the
 351   current maintainers at <a href=
 352   "mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</a>.
 353
 354   <p>To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
 355   <code>bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</code> containing the line:</p>
 356   <pre>
 357              subscribe &lt;name&gt;@&lt;host.domain&gt;
 358 </pre>
 359
 360   <p>This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
 361   development and testing of this package.</p>
 362
 363   <p>Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release
 364   are made available at <a href=
 365   "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>&nbsp;.</p>
 366
 367   <h2>Future Plans</h2>
 368
 369   <ul>
 370     <li>Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization
 371     support.</li>
 372
 373     <li>Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.</li>
 374   </ul>We need people to help with these projects. If you are
 375   interested in working on them, please join the ncurses list.
 376
 377   <h2>Other Related Resources</h2>The distribution provides a newer
 378   version of the terminfo-format terminal description file once
 379   maintained by <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/">Eric
 380   Raymond</a>&nbsp;. Unlike the older version, the termcap and
 381   terminfo data are provided in the same file, and provides several
 382   user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open specification.
 383
 384   <p>You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
 385   not covered in the terminfo file at <a href=
 386   "http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal">
 387   Richard Shuford's archive</a>&nbsp;.</p>
 388 </body>
 389 </html>