announce.html.in revision 62449
150276Speter<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 3.0//EN"> 250276Speter<!-- 362449Speter $Id: announce.html.in,v 1.37 2000/07/02 01:48:54 tom Exp $ 450276Speter--> 550276Speter<HTML> 650276Speter<HEAD> 750276Speter<TITLE>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</TITLE> 850276Speter<link rev=made href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org"> 950276Speter</HEAD> 1050276Speter<BODY> 1150276Speter 1250276Speter<H1>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</H1> 1350276Speter 1450276SpeterThe ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of 1550276Spetercurses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, 1650276Spetersupports pads and color 1750276Speterand multiple highlights and forms characters and function-key mapping, 1850276Speterand has all the other SYSV-curses enhancements over BSD curses.<P> 1950276Speter 2050276SpeterIn mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he 2150276Speterconsidered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of 2250276SpeterUnix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to 2350276Speterncurses.<P> 2450276Speter 2550276SpeterThe ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It should port easily to 2650276Speterany ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2 Warp!<P> 2750276Speter 2850276SpeterThe distribution includes the library and support utilities, including a 2950276Speterterminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), tput(1), tset(1), 3050276Speterand a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full manual pages are provided for 3150276Speterthe library and tools.<P> 3250276Speter 3350276SpeterThe ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at 3450276Speterthe GNU distribution site 3556639Speter<A HREF="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses</A>. 3650276SpeterIt is also available at 3762449Speter<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>. 3850276Speter 3950276Speter<H1>Release Notes</H1> 4050276Speter 4162449SpeterThis release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0; very few 4262449Speterapplications will require recompilation, depending on the platform. 4362449SpeterThese are the highlights from the change-log since ncurses 5.0 release. 4450276Speter<p> 4550276SpeterInterface changes: 4650276Speter<ul> 4762449Speter <li>made the extended terminal capabilities 4862449Speter (<code>configure --enable-tcap-names</code>) 4962449Speter a standard feature (though the configure script can disable it, 5062449Speter it is built by default). 5150276Speter 5262449Speter <li>removed the <code>trace()</code> function and related trace support 5362449Speter from the production library. This is the only interface change that 5462449Speter may cause problems with existing applications linked to shared 5562449Speter libraries, since not all platforms use the minor version number. 5650276Speter 5762449Speter <li>explicitly initialized to zero several data items which were 5862449Speter implicitly initialized, e.g., cur_term. If not explicitly 5962449Speter initialized, their storage type is C (common), and causes problems 6062449Speter linking on some platforms. 6150276Speter 6262449Speter <li>modified curses.h.in, undef'ing some symbols to avoid conflict with 6362449Speter C++ STL. 6450276Speter</ul> 6550276SpeterNew features: 6650276Speter<ul> 6762449Speter <li>added a new extension, <code>assume_default_colors()</code> to 6862449Speter provide better control over the use of default colors. This is 6962449Speter the principal visible difference between ncurses 5.1 and preceding 7062449Speter versions. The new extension allows an application to specify what 7162449Speter colors pair 0 uses. It defaults to white on black, unless you 7262449Speter have invoked <code>use_default_colors()</code>. 7350276Speter 7462449Speter <li>made several fixes to the terminfo-to-termcap conversion, and 7562449Speter have been using the generated termcaps without further hand-tuning. 7662449Speter This builds on the extension <code>use_extended_names()</code> by 7762449Speter adding "obsolete" termcap strings to terminfo.src 7862449Speter <ul> 7962449Speter <li>modified <code>tic</code> so that if extended names (i.e., 8062449Speter configure --enable-tcap-names) are active, then <code>tic -x</code> 8162449Speter will also write "obsolete" capabilities that are present in the 8262449Speter terminfo source. 8350276Speter 8462449Speter <li>added screen's AX capability (for ECMA SGR 39 and 49) to applicable 8562449Speter terminfo entries, use presence of this as a check for a small 8662449Speter improvement in setting default colors. 8750276Speter 8862449Speter <li>add -a option to tic and infocmp, which retains commented-out 8962449Speter capabilities during source translation/comparison, e.g., captoinfo 9062449Speter and infotocap. 9162449Speter </ul> 9250276Speter 9362449Speter <li>implemented limited support for UTF-8, useful with XFree86 xterm: 9462449Speter <ul> 9562449Speter <li>if the <code>configure --enable-widec</code> option is 9662449Speter given, append 'w' to names of the generated libraries (e.g., 9762449Speter libncursesw.so) to avoid conflict with existing ncurses libraries. 9862449Speter <li>add a simple UTF-8 output driver to the experimental 9962449Speter wide-character support. If any of the environment variables 10062449Speter LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE or LANG contain the string "UTF-8", this driver 10162449Speter will be used to translate the output to UTF-8. 10262449Speter <li>modified view.c to make a rudimentary viewer of UTF-8 text. 10362449Speter </ul> 10450276Speter 10562449Speter <li>modify <code>raw()</code> and <code>noraw()</code> to clear/restore 10662449Speter IEXTEN flag which affects stty lnext on systems such as FreeBSD 10750276Speter 10862449Speter <li>reordered tests during mouse initialization to allow for gpm to run in 10962449Speter xterm, or for xterm to be used under OS/2 EMX. Also dropped test for 11062449Speter $DISPLAY in favor of kmous=\E[M or $TERM containing "xterm". 11150276Speter 11262449Speter <li>added configure option <code>--with-manpage-symlinks</code>, which 11362449Speter provides for fully indexing manpage entries by making symbolic links 11462449Speter for the aliases. 11550276Speter 11662449Speter <li>changed <code>unctrl()</code> to render C1 characters (128-159) as 11762449Speter <code>~@</code>, <code>~A</code>, etc. 11850276Speter 11962449Speter <li>add experimental configure option --enable-colorfgbg to check for 12062449Speter $COLORTERM variable as set by rxvt/aterm/Eterm. 12150276Speter 12262449Speter <li>made the <code>infocmp -F</code> option less verbose. 12350276Speter 12462449Speter <li>dropped support for gnat 3.10 (gnat 3.12 is current). 12550276Speter 12650276Speter</ul> 12750276SpeterMajor bug fixes: 12850276Speter<ul> 12962449Speter <li>modified infocmp -e, -E options to ensure that generated fallback.c 13062449Speter type for Booleans agrees with term.h 13150276Speter 13262449Speter <li>documented a special case of incompatiblity between ncurses 4.2 and 13362449Speter 5.0, added a section for this in INSTALL. 13450276Speter 13562449Speter <li>corrected tests for file-descriptors in OS/2 EMX mouse support. A 13662449Speter negative value could be used by FD_SET, causing the select() call to 13762449Speter wait indefinitely. 13850276Speter 13962449Speter <li>made 'tput flash' work properly for xterm by flushing output in 14062449Speter delay_output() when using napms(), and modifying xterm's terminfo to 14162449Speter specify no padding character. Otherwise, xterm's reported baud rate 14262449Speter could mislead ncurses into producing too few padding characters. 14350276Speter 14462449Speter <li>modified lib_addch.c to allow repeated update to the lower-right 14562449Speter corner, rather than displaying only the first character written until 14662449Speter the cursor is moved. Recent versions of SVr4 curses can update the 14762449Speter lower-right corner, and behave this way. 14850276Speter 14962449Speter <li>modified echo() behavior of getch() to match Solaris curses for 15062449Speter carriage return and backspace (reported by Neil Zanella). 15150276Speter 15262449Speter <li>corrected offsets used for subwindows in <code>wresize()</code> 15362449Speter 15462449Speter <li>modified configure script so AC_MSG_ERROR is temporarily defined to 15562449Speter a warning in AC_PROG_CXX to make it recover from a missing C++ 15662449Speter compiler without requiring user to add --without-cxx option 15762449Speter 15862449Speter <li>corrected logic in lib_twait.c as used by lib_mouse.c for GPM mouse 15962449Speter support when poll() is used rather than select(). 16062449Speter 16162449Speter <li>made several fixes for buffer overflows, unchecked recursion, 16262449Speter improvements in performance, etc. See the NEWS file for details. 16350276Speter</ul> 16450276Speter 16550276Speter<H1>Features of Ncurses</H1> 16650276Speter 16756639SpeterThe ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses: 16850276Speter 16950276Speter<UL> 17050276Speter<LI>All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented). 17150276Speter<LI>Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color, 17250276Speterforms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition of keypad 17350276Speterand function keys. 17450276Speter<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting 17550276Spetera stack of windows with backing store, is included. 17650276Speter<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting 17750276Spetera uniform but flexible interface for menu programming, is included. 17850276Speter<LI>An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting 17950276Speterdata collection through on-screen forms, is included. 18050276Speter<LI>Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) implementation 18150276Speterare bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format SVr4 curses uses. 18250276Speter<LI>The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo 18350276Speterentries for use with less capable <STRONG>curses</STRONG>/<STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> 18450276Speterversions such as the HP/UX and AIX ports.</UL> 18550276Speter 18656639SpeterThe ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4: 18750276Speter 18850276Speter<UL> 18950276Speter<LI>The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN curses 19050276Speterspecification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE level features, 19150276Speterbut not all EXTENDED features). Most EXTENDED-level features not directly 19250276Speterconcerned with wide-character support are implemented, including many 19350276Speterfunction calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all 19450276Spetercalls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only). 19556639Speter<LI>Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner 19650276Speterof the screen if your terminal has an insert-character capability. 19750276Speter<LI>Ada95 and C++ bindings. 19850276Speter<LI>Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 console windows. 19950276Speter<LI>Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package. 20050276Speter<LI>The function <CODE>wresize()</CODE> allows you to resize windows, preserving 20150276Spetertheir data. 20250276Speter<LI>The function <CODE>use_default_colors()</CODE> allows you to 20350276Speteruse the terminal's default colors for the default color pair, 20450276Speterachieving the effect of transparent colors. 20550276Speter<LI>The functions <CODE>keyok()</CODE> 20650276Speterand <CODE>define_key()</CODE> allow 20750276Speteryou to better control the use of function keys, 20850276Spetere.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, 20950276Speteror by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given key code. 21050276Speter<LI>Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm. 21150276Speter<LI>Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a 21250276Spetercursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's 21350276Speteror System V's. 21450276Speter<LI>Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code incorporates 21550276Spetera novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it to make optimal 21650276Speteruse of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and line-deletion 21750276Speterfor screen-line movements. This algorithm is more powerful than 21850276Speterthe 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine. 21950276Speter<LI>Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The 22050276Speterscreen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the magic- 22150276Spetercookie unattributed spaces required just before the beginning and 22250276Speterafter the end would step on a non-space character. It will 22350276Speterautomatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so would make it 22450276Speterpossible to draw the highlight without changing the visual appearance 22550276Speterof the screen. 22650276Speter<LI>It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded 22750276Speterfallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal types even 22850276Speterwhen no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible (this may be useful 22950276Speterfor support of screen-oriented programs that must run in single-user mode). 23050276Speter<LI>The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the 23150276Speterability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and 23250276SpeterAT&T extension sets. 23350276Speter<LI>A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided. 23450276Speter<LI>The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo 23550276Speterentries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that directory 23650276Speterif it exists and the user has no write access to the system directory. 23750276SpeterThis feature makes it easier for users to have personal terminfo entries 23850276Speterwithout giving up access to the system terminfo directory. 23950276Speter<LI>You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled 24050276Speterdescriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this 24150276Spetergeneralizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System V.) 24250276Speter<LI>In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to 24350276Speterother entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to 24450276Spetercompiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the user's 24550276Speter$HOME/.terminfo directory. 24650276Speter<LI>A script (<STRONG>capconvert</STRONG>) is provided to help BSD users 24750276Spetertransition from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a 24850276SpeterTERMCAP environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file 24950276Speterand converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under $HOME/.terminfo. 25050276Speter<LI>Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in 25150276Speterwhen it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is neither 25250276Speterfast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have to, 25350276Speterbut it's there. 25450276Speter<LI>The table-of-entries utility <STRONG>toe</STRONG> makes it easy for users to 25550276Spetersee exactly what terminal types are available on the system. 25650276Speter<LI>The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry 25750276Speterpoint have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be 25850276Speterprototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with 25950276Speter<CODE>#undef</CODE>. 26050276Speter<LI>An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document provides 26150276Spetera narrative introduction to the curses programming interface. 26250276Speter</UL> 26350276Speter 26450276Speter<H1>State of the Package</H1> 26550276Speter 26650276SpeterNumerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the 26750276Speterlibrary is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many 26850276Speter`dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe 26950276Speteraccording to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks and 27050276Speterarena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester.<P> 27150276Speter 27250276SpeterThe ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications 27356639Speterincluding (versions starting with those noted): 27450276Speter<DL> 27556639Speter<DT> cdk 27656639Speter<DD> Curses Development Kit 27762449Speter<br> 27856639Speter<A HREF="http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html">Curses Development Kit</a> 27962449Speter<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html">http://dickey.his.com/cdk</A>. 28050276Speter<DT> ded 28150276Speter<DD> directory-editor 28262449Speter<br> 28362449Speter<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html">http://dickey.his.com/ded</A>. 28450276Speter<DT> dialog 28550276Speter<DD> the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the basis 28650276Speterfor similar applications on GNU/Linux. 28762449Speter<br> 28862449Speter<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html">http://dickey.his.com/dialog</A>. 28956639Speter<DT> lynx 29050276Speter<DD> the character-screen WWW browser 29162449Speter<br> 29262449Speter<A HREF="http://lynx.isc.org/release/">http://lynx.isc.org/release</A>. 29350276Speter<DT> Midnight Commander 4.1 29450276Speter<DD> file manager 29556639Speter<DT> mutt 29650276Speter<DD> mail utility 29762449Speter<br> 29862449Speter<A HREF="http://www.mutt.org">http://www.mutt.org</A>. 29956639Speter<DT> ncftp 30050276Speter<DD> file-transfer utility 30150276Speter<DT> nvi 30250276Speter<DD> New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and later. 30356639Speter<DT> tin 30456639Speter<DD> newsreader, supporting color, MIME 30562449Speter<br> 30662449Speter<A HREF="http://www.tin.org">http://www.tin.org</A>. 30750276Speter<DT> taper 30850276Speter<DD> tape archive utility 30950276Speter<DT> vh-1.6 31050276Speter<DD> Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File 31150276Speter</DL> 31250276Speteras well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone: 31350276Speter<DL> 31456639Speter<DT> minicom 31550276Speter<DD> terminal emulator 31650276Speter<DT> vile 31750276Speter<DD> vi-like-emacs 31862449Speter<br> 31962449Speter<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html">http://dickey.his.com/vile</A>. 32050276Speter</DL> 32150276Speter<P> 32250276Speter 32350276SpeterThe ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs (including 32450276Spetera few games). 32550276Speter 32650276Speter<H2>Who's Who and What's What</H2> 32750276Speter 32850276SpeterThe original developers of ncurses are <A 32950276SpeterHREF="mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com">Zeyd Ben-Halim</A> and 33050276Speter<A HREF="http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html">Eric S. Raymond</A>. 33150276SpeterOngoing work is being done by 33262449Speter<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A> 33350276Speterand 33450276Speter<A HREF="mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net">Jürgen Pfeifer</A>. 33562449Speter<A HREF="mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com">Thomas Dickey</A> 33650276Speteracts as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which holds the 33750276Spetercopyright on ncurses. 33850276SpeterContact the current maintainers at 33950276Speter<A HREF="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</A>. 34050276Speter<P> 34150276Speter 34250276SpeterTo join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to 34350276Speter<CODE>bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</CODE> containing the line: 34450276Speter<PRE> 34550276Speter subscribe <name>@<host.domain> 34650276Speter</PRE> 34750276Speter 34850276SpeterThis list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development and 34950276Spetertesting of this package.<P> 35050276Speter 35150276SpeterBeta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made available at 35262449Speter<A HREF="ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses">ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses</A>. 35350276Speter 35450276Speter<H2>Future Plans</H2> 35550276Speter<UL> 35650276Speter<LI>Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization support. 35750276Speter<LI>Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows. 35850276Speter</UL> 35950276SpeterWe need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in working 36050276Speteron them, please join the ncurses list. 36150276Speter 36250276Speter<H2>Other Related Resources</H2> 36350276Speter 36450276SpeterThe distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format 36550276Speterterminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond. 36650276Speter<A HREF="http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo">http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo</A>.<P> 36750276Speter 36850276SpeterYou can find lots of information on terminal-related topics 36950276Speternot covered in the terminfo file at 37050276Speter<A HREF="http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html">Richard Shuford's 37150276Speterarchive</A>. 37250276Speter</BODY> 37350276Speter</HTML> 37450276Speter<!-- 37550276Speter# The following sets edit modes for GNU EMACS 37650276Speter# Local Variables: 37750276Speter# mode:html 37850276Speter# case-fold-search:nil 37950276Speter# fill-column:70 38050276Speter# End: 38150276Speter--> 382