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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 3.0//EN">
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<HEAD>
<TITLE>Announcing ncurses 5.1</TITLE>
<link rev=made href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Announcing ncurses 5.1</H1>
The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of
curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format,
supports pads and color
and multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping,
and has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.<P>
In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he
considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of
Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to
ncurses.<P>
The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It should port easily to
any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2 Warp!<P>
The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including a
terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), tput(1), tset(1),
and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for
the library and tools.<P>
The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at
the GNU distribution site
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses</A>.
It is also available at
<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
<H1>Release Notes</H1>
This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0; very few
applications will require recompilation, depending on the platform.
These are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.0 release.
<p>
Interface changes:
<ul>
<li>made the extended terminal capabilities
(<code>configure --enable-tcap-names</code>)
a standard feature (though the configure script can disable it,
it is built by default).
<li>removed the <code>trace()</code> function and related trace support
from the production library. This is the only interface change that
may cause problems with existing applications linked to shared
libraries, since not all platforms use the minor version number.
<li>explicitly initialized to zero several data items which were
implicitly initialized, e.g., cur_term. If not explicitly
initialized, their storage type is C (common), and causes problems
linking on some platforms.
<li>modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict with
C++ STL.
</ul>
New features:
<ul>
<li>added a new extension, <code>assume_default_colors()</code> to
provide better control over the use of default colors. This is
the principal visible difference between ncurses 5.1 and preceding
versions. The new extension allows an application to specify what
colors pair 0 uses. It defaults to white on black, unless you
have invoked <code>use_default_colors()</code>.
<li>made several fixes to the terminfo-to-termcap conversion, and
have been using the generated termcaps without further hand-tuning.
This builds on the extension <code>use_extended_names()</code> by
adding "obsolete" termcap strings to terminfo.src
<ul>
<li>modified <code>tic</code> so that if extended names (i.e.,
configure --enable-tcap-names) are active, then <code>tic -x</code>
will also write "obsolete" capabilities that are present in the
terminfo source.
<li>added screen's AX capability (for ECMA SGR 39 and 49) to applicable
terminfo entries, use presence of this as a check for a small
improvement in setting default colors.
<li>add -a option to tic and infocmp, which retains commented-out
capabilities during source translation/comparison, e.g., captoinfo
and infotocap.
</ul>
<li>implemented limited support for UTF-8, useful with XFree86 xterm:
<ul>
<li>if the <code>configure --enable-widec</code> option is
given, append 'w' to names of the generated libraries (e.g.,
libncursesw.so) to avoid conflict with existing ncurses libraries.
<li>add a simple UTF-8 output driver to the experimental
wide-character support. If any of the environment variables
LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or LANG contain the string "UTF-8", this driver
will be used to translate the output to UTF-8.
<li>modified view.c to make a rudimentary viewer of UTF-8 text.
</ul>
<li>modify <code>raw()</code> and <code>noraw()</code> to clear/restore
IEXTEN flag which affects stty lnext on systems such as FreeBSD
<li>reordered tests during mouse initialization to allow for gpm to run in
xterm, or for xterm to be used under OS/2 EMX. Also dropped test for
$DISPLAY in favor of kmous=\E[M or $TERM containing "xterm".
<li>added configure option <code>--with-manpage-symlinks</code>, which
provides for fully indexing manpage entries by making symbolic links
for the aliases.
<li>changed <code>unctrl()</code> to render C1 characters (128-159) as
<code>~@</code>, <code>~A</code>, etc.
<li>add experimental configure option --enable-colorfgbg to check for
$COLORTERM variable as set by rxvt/aterm/Eterm.
<li>made the <code>infocmp -F</code> option less verbose.
<li>dropped support for gnat 3.10 (gnat 3.12 is current).
</ul>
Major bug fixes:
<ul>
<li>modified infocmp -e, -E options to ensure that generated fallback.c
type for Booleans agrees with term.h
<li>documented a special case of incompatiblity between ncurses 4.2 and
5.0, added a section for this in INSTALL.
<li>corrected tests for file-descriptors in OS/2 EMX mouse support. A
negative value could be used by FD_SET, causing the select() call to
wait indefinitely.
<li>made 'tput flash' work properly for xterm by flushing output in
delay_output() when using napms(), and modifying xterm's terminfo to
specify no padding character. Otherwise, xterm's reported baud rate
could mislead ncurses into producing too few padding characters.
<li>modified lib_addch.c to allow repeated update to the lower-right
corner, rather than displaying only the first character written until
the cursor is moved. Recent versions of SVr4 curses can update the
lower-right corner, and behave this way.
<li>modified echo() behavior of getch() to match Solaris curses for
carriage return and backspace (reported by Neil Zanella).
<li>corrected offsets used for subwindows in <code>wresize()</code>
<li>modified configure script so AC_MSG_ERROR is temporarily defined to
a warning in AC_PROG_CXX to make it recover from a missing C++
compiler without requiring user to add --without-cxx option
<li>corrected logic in lib_twait.c as used by lib_mouse.c for GPM mouse
support when poll() is used rather than select().
<li>made several fixes for buffer overflows, unchecked recursion,
improvements in performance, etc. See the NEWS file for details.
</ul>
<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1>
The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:
<UL>
<LI>All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented).
<LI>Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color,
forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition of keypad
and function keys.
<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting
a stack of windows with backing store, is included.
<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting
a uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is included.
<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting
data collection through on-screen forms, is included.
<LI>Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) implementation
are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format SVr4 curses uses.
<LI>The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo
entries for use with less capable <STRONG>curses</STRONG>/<STRONG>terminfo</STRONG>
versions such as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</UL>
The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4:
<UL>
<LI>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN curses
specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE level features,
but not all EXTENDED features). Most EXTENDED-level features not directly
concerned with wide-character support are implemented, including many
function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all
calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
<LI>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner
of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability.
<LI>Ada95 and C++ bindings.
<LI>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 console windows.
<LI>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package.
<LI>The function <CODE>wresize()</CODE> allows you to resize windows, preserving
their data.
<LI>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.
<LI>The functions <CODE>keyok()</CODE>
and <CODE>define_key()</CODE> allow
you to better control the use of function keys,
e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE,
or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key code.
<LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm.
<LI>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a
cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's
or System V's.
<LI>Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code incorporates
a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it to make optimal
use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and line-deletion
for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more powerful than
the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine.
<LI>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.
<LI>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).
<LI>The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the
ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
AT&T extension sets.
<LI>A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.
<LI>The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo
entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory
if it exists and the user has no write access to the system directory.
This feature makes it easier for users to have personal terminfo entries
without giving up access to the system terminfo directory.
<LI>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.)
<LI>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.
<LI>A script (<STRONG>capconvert</STRONG>) is provided to help BSD users
transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a
TERMCAP environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file
and converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo.
<LI>Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in
when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is neither
fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have to,
but it's there.
<LI>The table-of-entries utility <STRONG>toe</STRONG> makes it easy for users to
see exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
<LI>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>.
<LI>An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document provides
a narrative introduction to the curses programming interface.
</UL>
<H1>State of the Package</H1>
Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the
library is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many
`dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe
according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks and
arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.<P>
The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications
including (versions starting with those noted):
<DL>
<DT> cdk
<DD> Curses Development Kit
<br>
<A HREF="http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html">Curses Development Kit</a>
<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html">http://dickey.his.com/cdk</A>.
<DT> ded
<DD> directory-editor
<br>
<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html">http://dickey.his.com/ded</A>.
<DT> dialog
<DD> the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the basis
for similar applications on GNU/Linux.
<br>
<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html">http://dickey.his.com/dialog</A>.
<DT> lynx
<DD> the character-screen WWW browser
<br>
<A HREF="http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release</A>.
<DT> Midnight Commander 4.1
<DD> file manager
<DT> mutt
<DD> mail utility
<br>
<A HREF="http://www.mutt.org">http://www.mutt.org</A>.
<DT> ncftp
<DD> file-transfer utility
<DT> nvi
<DD> New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and later.
<DT> tin
<DD> newsreader, supporting color, MIME
<br>
<A HREF="http://www.tin.org">http://www.tin.org</A>.
<DT> taper
<DD> tape archive utility
<DT> vh-1.6
<DD> Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File
</DL>
as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:
<DL>
<DT> minicom
<DD> terminal emulator
<DT> vile
<DD> vi-like-emacs
<br>
<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html">http://dickey.his.com/vile</A>.
</DL>
<P>
The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs (including
a few games).
<H2>Who's Who and What's What</H2>
The original developers of ncurses are <A
HREF="mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com">Zeyd Ben-Halim</A> and
<A HREF="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html">Eric S. Raymond</A>.
Ongoing work is being done by
<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
and
<A HREF="mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net">Jürgen Pfeifer</A>.
<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A>
acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the
copyright on ncurses.
Contact the current maintainers at
<A HREF="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</A>.
<P>
To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to
<CODE>bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</CODE> containing the line:
<PRE>
subscribe <name>@<host.domain>
</PRE>
This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and
testing of this package.<P>
Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made available at
<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>.
<H2>Future Plans</H2>
<UL>
<LI>Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization support.
<LI>Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.
</UL>
We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in working
on them, please join the ncurses list.
<H2>Other Related Resources</H2>
The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format
terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond.
<A HREF="http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo">http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo</A>.<P>
You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
not covered in the terminfo file at
<A HREF="http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html">Richard Shuford's
archive</A>.
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