150276Speter<!-- 2262685Sdelphij $Id: announce.html.in,v 1.89 2013/05/18 10:12:25 tom Exp $ 3166124Srafan **************************************************************************** 4262685Sdelphij * Copyright (c) 1998-2011,2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. * 5166124Srafan * * 6166124Srafan * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a * 7166124Srafan * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the * 8166124Srafan * "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including * 9166124Srafan * without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, * 10166124Srafan * distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell * 11166124Srafan * copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is * 12166124Srafan * furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: * 13166124Srafan * * 14166124Srafan * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included * 15166124Srafan * in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. * 16166124Srafan * * 17166124Srafan * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS * 18166124Srafan * OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF * 19166124Srafan * MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. * 20166124Srafan * IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, * 21166124Srafan * DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR * 22166124Srafan * OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR * 23166124Srafan * THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. * 24166124Srafan * * 25166124Srafan * Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright * 26166124Srafan * holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the * 27166124Srafan * sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written * 28166124Srafan * authorization. * 29166124Srafan **************************************************************************** 3050276Speter--> 31262685Sdelphij<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> 3250276Speter 33262629Sdelphij<html> 34262629Sdelphij<head> 35262629Sdelphij <meta name="generator" content= 36262685Sdelphij "HTML Tidy for Linux (vers 25 March 2009), see www.w3.org"> 3750276Speter 38262629Sdelphij <title>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</title> 39262629Sdelphij <link rev="made" href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org"> 40262629Sdelphij <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= 41262629Sdelphij "text/html; charset=us-ascii"> 42262629Sdelphij</head> 4350276Speter 44262629Sdelphij<body> 45262685Sdelphij <h1>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</h1> 4650276Speter 47262685Sdelphij <p>The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation 48262685Sdelphij of curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo 49262685Sdelphij format, supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms 50262685Sdelphij characters and function-key mapping, and has all the other 51262685Sdelphij SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.</p> 52262685Sdelphij 53262629Sdelphij <p>In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared 54262629Sdelphij that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the 55262629Sdelphij keepers of Unix releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to 56262629Sdelphij switch over to ncurses.</p> 5750276Speter 58262629Sdelphij <p>The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It has been in 59262629Sdelphij use for some time with OpenBSD as the system curses library, and 60262629Sdelphij on FreeBSD and NetBSD as an external package. It should port 61262629Sdelphij easily to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported 62262629Sdelphij to OS/2 Warp!</p> 6350276Speter 64262629Sdelphij <p>The distribution includes the library and support utilities, 65262629Sdelphij including a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), 66262629Sdelphij clear(1), tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool 67262629Sdelphij captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for the library and 68262629Sdelphij tools.</p> 6950276Speter 70262629Sdelphij <p>The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the 71262629Sdelphij GNU distribution site <a href= 72262629Sdelphij "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a> .<br> 7350276Speter 74262629Sdelphij It is also available at <a href= 75262629Sdelphij "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p> 7650276Speter 77262685Sdelphij <h1>Release Notes</h1> 78262685Sdelphij 79262685Sdelphij <p>This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 80262685Sdelphij 5.0 through 5.8; very few applications will require 81262685Sdelphij recompilation, depending on the platform. These are the 82262685Sdelphij highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.8 release.</p> 83262685Sdelphij 84262685Sdelphij <p>This is a bug-fix release, correcting a small number of urgent 85262685Sdelphij problems in the ncurses library from the 5.8 release.</p> 86262685Sdelphij 87262685Sdelphij <p>It also improves the Ada95 binding:</p> 88262685Sdelphij 89262629Sdelphij <ul> 90262685Sdelphij <li>fixes a longstanding portability problem with its use of 91262685Sdelphij the <a href= 92262685Sdelphij "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/man/form_fieldtype.3x">set_field_type</a> 93262685Sdelphij function. Because that function uses variable-length argument 94262685Sdelphij lists, its interface with gnat does not work with certain 95262685Sdelphij platforms.</li> 96262685Sdelphij 97262685Sdelphij <li>improves configurability and portability, particularly when 98262685Sdelphij built separately from the main ncurses tree. The 5.8 release 99262685Sdelphij introduced scripts which can be used to construct separate 100262685Sdelphij tarballs for the Ada95 and ncurses examples. 101262685Sdelphij 102262685Sdelphij <p>Those were a proof of concept. For the 5.9 release, those 103262685Sdelphij scripts are augmented with rpm- and dpkg-scripts used in test 104262685Sdelphij builds against a variety of gnat- and system ncurses versions 105262685Sdelphij as old as gnat 3.15 and ncurses 5.4 (see snapshots and 106262685Sdelphij systems tested <a href= 107262685Sdelphij "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-Ada95.html">here</a>.</p> 108262685Sdelphij </li> 109262685Sdelphij 110262685Sdelphij <li>additional improvements were made for portability of the 111262685Sdelphij ncurses examples, adding rpm- and dpkg-scripts for test-builds. 112262685Sdelphij See <a href= 113262685Sdelphij "http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">this 114262685Sdelphij page</a> for snapshots and other information.</li> 115262629Sdelphij </ul> 11650276Speter 117262685Sdelphij <h1>Features of Ncurses</h1> 11876726Speter 119262685Sdelphij <p>The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V 120262685Sdelphij Release 4) curses:</p> 121262685Sdelphij 122262629Sdelphij <ul> 123262629Sdelphij <li>All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are 124262629Sdelphij documented).</li> 12550276Speter 126262629Sdelphij <li>Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard 127262629Sdelphij mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and 128262629Sdelphij automatic recognition of keypad and function keys.</li> 12950276Speter 130262629Sdelphij <li>An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack 131262629Sdelphij of windows with backing store, is included.</li> 13276726Speter 133262629Sdelphij <li>An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a 134262629Sdelphij uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is 135262629Sdelphij included.</li> 13676726Speter 137262629Sdelphij <li>An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data 138262629Sdelphij collection through on-screen forms, is included.</li> 13976726Speter 140262629Sdelphij <li>Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) 141262629Sdelphij implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format 142262629Sdelphij SVr4 curses uses.</li> 14376726Speter 144262629Sdelphij <li>The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo 145262629Sdelphij entries for use with less capable 146262629Sdelphij <strong>curses</strong>/<strong>terminfo</strong> versions such 147262629Sdelphij as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</li> 148262685Sdelphij </ul> 14976726Speter 150262685Sdelphij <p>The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over 151262685Sdelphij SVr4:</p> 152262685Sdelphij 153262629Sdelphij <ul> 154262629Sdelphij <li>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the 155262629Sdelphij X/OPEN curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements 156262629Sdelphij all BASE level features, and most EXTENDED features). It 157262629Sdelphij includes many function calls not supported under SVr4 curses 158262629Sdelphij (but portability of all calls is documented so you can use the 159262629Sdelphij SVr4 subset only).</li> 16050276Speter 161262629Sdelphij <li>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the 162262629Sdelphij rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if your terminal has 163262629Sdelphij an insert-character capability.</li> 16450276Speter 165262629Sdelphij <li>Ada95 and C++ bindings.</li> 16650276Speter 167262629Sdelphij <li>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and 168262629Sdelphij FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.</li> 16950276Speter 170262629Sdelphij <li>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm 171262629Sdelphij package.</li> 17250276Speter 173262629Sdelphij <li>The function <code>wresize</code> allows you to resize 174262629Sdelphij windows, preserving their data.</li> 17550276Speter 176262629Sdelphij <li>The function <code>use_default_colors</code> allows you to 177262629Sdelphij use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair, 178262629Sdelphij achieving the effect of transparent colors.</li> 17950276Speter 180262629Sdelphij <li>The functions <code>keyok</code> and 181262629Sdelphij <code>define_key</code> allow you to better control the use of 182262629Sdelphij function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, or by 183262629Sdelphij defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key 184262629Sdelphij code.</li> 18550276Speter 186262629Sdelphij <li>Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm, when 187262629Sdelphij configured using the <code>--enable-ext-colors</code> 188262629Sdelphij option.</li> 18950276Speter 190262629Sdelphij <li>Support for 16-color terminals, such as <em>aixterm</em> 191262629Sdelphij and <em>modern xterm</em>.</li> 19250276Speter 193262629Sdelphij <li>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now 194262629Sdelphij features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient 195262629Sdelphij than either BSD's or System V's.</li> 19650276Speter 197262629Sdelphij <li>Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code 198262629Sdelphij incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables 199262629Sdelphij it to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, 200262629Sdelphij and line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is 201262629Sdelphij more powerful than the 4.4BSD curses <code>quickch</code> 202262629Sdelphij routine.</li> 20350276Speter 204262629Sdelphij <li>Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. 205262629Sdelphij The screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if 206262629Sdelphij the magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the 207262629Sdelphij beginning and after the end would step on a non-space 208262629Sdelphij character. It will automatically shift highlight boundaries 209262629Sdelphij when doing so would make it possible to draw the highlight 210262629Sdelphij without changing the visual appearance of the screen.</li> 21150276Speter 212262629Sdelphij <li>It is possible to generate the library with a list of 213262629Sdelphij pre-loaded fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve 214262629Sdelphij those terminal types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file 215262629Sdelphij is accessible (this may be useful for support of 216262629Sdelphij screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user 217262629Sdelphij mode).</li> 21862449Speter 219262629Sdelphij <li>The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the 220262629Sdelphij ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and 221262629Sdelphij AT&T extension sets.</li> 22262449Speter 223262629Sdelphij <li>A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided.</li> 22462449Speter 225262629Sdelphij <li>The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read 226262629Sdelphij terminfo entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile 227262629Sdelphij to that directory if it exists and the user has no write access 228262629Sdelphij to the system directory. This feature makes it easier for users 229262629Sdelphij to have personal terminfo entries without giving up access to 230262629Sdelphij the system terminfo directory.</li> 23176726Speter 232262629Sdelphij <li>You may specify a path of directories to search for 233262629Sdelphij compiled descriptions with the environment variable 234262629Sdelphij TERMINFO_DIRS (this generalizes the feature provided by 235262629Sdelphij TERMINFO under stock System V.)</li> 23676726Speter 237262629Sdelphij <li>In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not 238262629Sdelphij just to other entries in the same source file (as in System V) 239262629Sdelphij but also to compiled entries in either the system terminfo 240262629Sdelphij directory or the user's $HOME/.terminfo directory.</li> 24176726Speter 242262629Sdelphij <li>A script (<strong>capconvert</strong>) is provided to help 243262629Sdelphij BSD users transition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the 244262629Sdelphij information in a TERMCAP environment variable and/or a 245262629Sdelphij ~/.termcap local entries file and converts it to an equivalent 246262629Sdelphij local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo.</li> 24776726Speter 248262629Sdelphij <li>Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled 249262629Sdelphij in when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This 250262629Sdelphij feature is neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it 251262629Sdelphij unless you have to, but it's there.</li> 25276726Speter 253262629Sdelphij <li>The table-of-entries utility <strong>toe</strong> makes it 254262629Sdelphij easy for users to see exactly what terminal types are available 255262629Sdelphij on the system.</li> 256184989Srafan 257262629Sdelphij <li>The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro 258262629Sdelphij entry point have a corresponding function which may be linked 259262629Sdelphij (and will be prototype-checked) if the macro definition is 260262629Sdelphij disabled with <code>#undef</code>.</li> 261184989Srafan 262262629Sdelphij <li>An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document 263262629Sdelphij provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming 264262629Sdelphij interface.</li> 265262629Sdelphij </ul> 266184989Srafan 267262685Sdelphij <h1>State of the Package</h1> 268184989Srafan 269262685Sdelphij <p>Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the 270262685Sdelphij library is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking 271262685Sdelphij in many `dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is 272262685Sdelphij now type-safe according to gcc -Wall. The library has been 273262685Sdelphij checked for malloc leaks and arena corruption by the Purify 274262685Sdelphij memory-allocation tester.</p> 275262685Sdelphij 276262629Sdelphij <p>The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of 277262629Sdelphij applications including (versions starting with those noted):</p> 27876726Speter 279262629Sdelphij <dl> 280262629Sdelphij <dt>cdk</dt> 28176726Speter 282262629Sdelphij <dd>Curses Development Kit<br> 283262629Sdelphij <a href= 284262629Sdelphij "http://invisible-island.net/cdk/">http://invisible-island.net/cdk/</a><br> 28576726Speter 286262629Sdelphij <a href= 287262629Sdelphij "http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/">http://www.vexus.ca/products/CDK/</a></dd> 28876726Speter 289262629Sdelphij <dt>ded</dt> 29076726Speter 291262629Sdelphij <dd>directory-editor<br> 292262629Sdelphij <a href= 293262629Sdelphij "http://invisible-island.net/ded/">http://invisible-island.net/ded/</a></dd> 29476726Speter 295262629Sdelphij <dt>dialog</dt> 29676726Speter 297262629Sdelphij <dd>the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and 298262629Sdelphij the basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux.<br> 299262629Sdelphij <a href= 300262629Sdelphij "http://invisible-island.net/dialog/">http://invisible-island.net/dialog/</a></dd> 301184989Srafan 302262629Sdelphij <dt>lynx</dt> 303184989Srafan 304262629Sdelphij <dd>the character-screen WWW browser<br> 305262629Sdelphij <a href= 306262629Sdelphij "http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release/</a></dd> 307184989Srafan 308262629Sdelphij <dt>Midnight Commander</dt> 30976726Speter 310262629Sdelphij <dd>file manager<br> 311262629Sdelphij <a href= 312262629Sdelphij "http://www.midnight-commander.org/">http://www.midnight-commander.org/</a></dd> 31376726Speter 314262629Sdelphij <dt>mutt</dt> 31576726Speter 316262629Sdelphij <dd>mail utility<br> 317262629Sdelphij <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">http://www.mutt.org/</a></dd> 31876726Speter 319262629Sdelphij <dt>ncftp</dt> 32050276Speter 321262629Sdelphij <dd>file-transfer utility<br> 322262629Sdelphij <a href="http://www.ncftp.com/">http://www.ncftp.com/</a></dd> 32376726Speter 324262629Sdelphij <dt>nvi</dt> 32576726Speter 326262629Sdelphij <dd>New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 327262629Sdelphij and later.<br> 328262629Sdelphij <a href= 329262629Sdelphij "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/nvi</a><br> 330262629Sdelphij </dd> 33176726Speter 332262629Sdelphij <dt>pinfo</dt> 33376726Speter 334262629Sdelphij <dd>Lynx-like info browser. <a href= 335262629Sdelphij "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pinfo/</a></dd> 33676726Speter 337262629Sdelphij <dt>tin</dt> 33876726Speter 339262629Sdelphij <dd>newsreader, supporting color, MIME <a href= 340262629Sdelphij "http://www.tin.org/">http://www.tin.org/</a></dd> 341262685Sdelphij </dl> 34276726Speter 343262685Sdelphij <p>as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support 344262685Sdelphij alone:</p> 345262685Sdelphij 346262629Sdelphij <dl> 347262629Sdelphij <dt>minicom</dt> 34876726Speter 349262629Sdelphij <dd>terminal emulator<br> 350262629Sdelphij <a href= 351262629Sdelphij "http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">http://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a></dd> 35250276Speter 353262629Sdelphij <dt>vile</dt> 35450276Speter 355262629Sdelphij <dd>vi-like-emacs<br> 356262629Sdelphij <a href= 357262629Sdelphij "http://invisible-island.net/vile/">http://invisible-island.net/vile/</a></dd> 358262629Sdelphij </dl> 35950276Speter 360262629Sdelphij <p>The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs 361262629Sdelphij (including a few games).</p> 36250276Speter 363262685Sdelphij <h2>Who's Who and What's What</h2> 36450276Speter 365262685Sdelphij <p>Zeyd Ben-Halim started it from a previous package pcurses, 366262685Sdelphij written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development. 367262685Sdelphij Jürgen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries. 368262685Sdelphij Ongoing work is being done by <a href= 369262685Sdelphij "mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas Dickey</a>. Thomas 370262685Sdelphij Dickey acts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, 371262685Sdelphij which holds the copyright on ncurses. Contact the current 372262685Sdelphij maintainers at <a href= 373262685Sdelphij "mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</a>.</p> 374262685Sdelphij 375262629Sdelphij <p>To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to 376262629Sdelphij <code>bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</code> containing the line:</p> 377262629Sdelphij <pre> 378262629Sdelphij subscribe <name>@<host.domain> 379262629Sdelphij</pre> 38050276Speter 381262629Sdelphij <p>This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the 382262629Sdelphij development and testing of this package.</p> 38350276Speter 384262629Sdelphij <p>Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release 385262629Sdelphij are made available at <a href= 386262629Sdelphij "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</p> 38750276Speter 388262685Sdelphij <p>There is an archive of the mailing list here:</p> 389262685Sdelphij 390262685Sdelphij <p><a href= 391262685Sdelphij "http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses">http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses</a> 392262685Sdelphij (also <a href= 393262685Sdelphij "https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses">https</a>)</p> 394262685Sdelphij 395262629Sdelphij <h2>Future Plans</h2> 39650276Speter 397262629Sdelphij <ul> 398262629Sdelphij <li>Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization 399262629Sdelphij support.</li> 40050276Speter 401262629Sdelphij <li>Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows.</li> 402262685Sdelphij </ul> 40350276Speter 404262685Sdelphij <p>We need people to help with these projects. If you are 405262685Sdelphij interested in working on them, please join the ncurses list.</p> 406262685Sdelphij 407262685Sdelphij <h2>Other Related Resources</h2> 408262685Sdelphij 409262685Sdelphij <p>The distribution provides a newer version of the 410262685Sdelphij terminfo-format terminal description file once maintained by 411262685Sdelphij <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/">Eric 412262629Sdelphij Raymond</a> . Unlike the older version, the termcap and 413262629Sdelphij terminfo data are provided in the same file, and provides several 414262685Sdelphij user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open specification.</p> 41550276Speter 416262629Sdelphij <p>You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics 417262629Sdelphij not covered in the terminfo file at <a href= 418262629Sdelphij "http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal"> 419262629Sdelphij Richard Shuford's archive</a> .</p> 420262629Sdelphij</body> 421262629Sdelphij</html> 422