1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> 2<!-- 3 $Id: announce.html,v 1.56 2013/05/17 23:34:26 tom Exp $ 4 **************************************************************************** 5 * Copyright (c) 1998-2010,2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. * 6 * * 7 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a * 8 * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the * 9 * "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including * 10 * without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, * 11 * distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell * 12 * copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is * 13 * furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: * 14 * * 15 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included * 16 * in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. * 17 * * 18 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS * 19 * OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF * 20 * MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. * 21 * IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, * 22 * DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR * 23 * OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR * 24 * THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. * 25 * * 26 * Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright * 27 * holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the * 28 * sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written * 29 * authorization. * 30 **************************************************************************** 31--> 32 33<html> 34<head> 35 <meta name="generator" content= 36 "HTML Tidy for Linux/x86 (vers 6 November 2007), see www.w3.org"> 37 38 <title>Announcing ncurses 5.9</title> 39 <link rev="made" href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org"> 40 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= 41 "text/html; charset=us-ascii"> 42</head> 43 44<body> 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> .<br> 72 73 It is also available at <a href= 74 "ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a> .</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&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. Jürgen 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 <name>@<host.domain> 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> .</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> . 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> .</p> 388</body> 389</html> 390