| Announcing ncurses 6.3 |
| |
| Overview |
| |
| The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of |
| curses in System V Release 4.0 (SVr4), 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 SVr4-curses |
| enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of X/Open |
| Curses. |
| |
| In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he |
| considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the keepers of unix |
| releases such as BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to ncurses. |
| |
| Since 1995, ncurses has been ported to many systems: |
| * It is used in almost every system based on the Linux kernel (aside |
| from some embedded applications). |
| * It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD and |
| MacOS. |
| * It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The first of |
| these was EMX on OS/2 Warp. |
| * It is used (though usually not as the system curses) on all of the |
| vendor unix systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO, Solaris, |
| Tru64. |
| * It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming unix. |
| |
| The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including |
| * captoinfo, a termcap conversion tool |
| * clear, utility for clearing the screen |
| * infocmp, the terminfo decompiler |
| * tabs, set tabs on a terminal |
| * tic, the terminfo compiler |
| * toe, list (table of) terminfo entries |
| * tput, utility for retrieving terminal capabilities in shell |
| scripts |
| * tset, to initialize the terminal |
| |
| Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools. |
| |
| The ncurses distribution is available at ncurses' homepage: |
| |
| ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/ or |
| https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ . |
| |
| It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution site |
| |
| ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ . |
| |
| Release Notes |
| |
| These notes are for ncurses 6.3, released October 21, 2021. |
| |
| This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0 |
| through 6.2; providing extensions to the application binary interface |
| (ABI). Although the source can still be configured to support the |
| ncurses 5 ABI, the reason for the release is to reflect improvements |
| to the ncurses 6 ABI and the supporting utility programs. |
| |
| There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in this |
| announcement. |
| |
| The most important bug-fixes/improvements dealt with portability |
| issues. The release notes also mention some other bug-fixes, but are |
| focused on new features and improvements to existing features since |
| ncurses 6.2 release. |
| |
| Library improvements |
| |
| New features |
| |
| There are a few new features: |
| * A new (experimental) driver, for the Windows Terminal |
| configuration is provided. |
| * A script is provided which enables OpenBSD users to upgrade their |
| system to use ncurses 6.3 (OpenBSD developers are also invited to |
| do this). |
| |
| Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and extensions) |
| are provided in this release: |
| * modify lib_mouse.c to check for out-of-range button numbers, |
| convert those to position reports. |
| * add sp-funcs for erasewchar, killwchar. |
| |
| Other improvements |
| |
| These are revised features: |
| * modify wgetnstr, wgetn_wstr to improve compatibility with SVr4 |
| curses in its treatment of interrupt and quit characters |
| |
| These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features: |
| * mark wgetch-events feature as deprecated. |
| + prevent KEY_EVENT from appearing in curses.h unless the |
| configure option --enable-wgetch-events is used. |
| + modify MKkey_defs.sh to hide ncurses' definition of |
| KEY_EVENTS to reduce Visual Studio C++ redefinition warnings. |
| * reduce build-warnings by excluding ncurses-internals from |
| deprecation warnings. |
| |
| These are improvements to existing features: |
| * drop symbols GCC_PRINTF and GCC_SCANF from <curses.h>, to simplify |
| use. |
| * apply gcc format attribute to prototypes which use a va_list |
| parameter rather than a "..." variable-length parameter list. |
| * modify <term.h> so that it is not necessary to include <curses.h> |
| before <term.h>. |
| * provide for wide-characters as background character in wbkgrnd |
| * improve parameter-checking for tparm, adding function _nc_tiparm() |
| to handle the most-used case, which accepts only numeric |
| parameters. |
| * use return-value from vsnprintf to reallocate as needed to allow |
| for buffers larger than the screen size. |
| * add another fflush(stdout) in _nc_flush to handle time-delays in |
| the middle of strings such as flash when the application uses |
| low-level calls rather than curses. |
| |
| These are corrections to existing features: |
| * add a check to guard against repeat_char emitting digits which |
| could be interpreted as BSD-style padding when --enable-bsdpad is |
| configured. |
| * check for screen size-change in scr_init and scr_restore, in case |
| a screen dump does not match the current screen dimensions |
| |
| Program improvements |
| |
| Several improvements were made to the utility programs: |
| |
| tabs |
| |
| + implement "+m" option |
| |
| tic |
| |
| + add check for duplicate "use=" clauses. |
| + add check to report instances where tparm would detect an |
| error in an expression. |
| + add user-defined capabilities from mintty to Caps-ncurses, |
| for checking consistency. |
| + improve warning when oc/op do not mention SGR 39/49 for xterm |
| compatible XT flag. |
| + improve checks for number of parameters of smglp, smgrp, |
| smgtp, and smgbp. |
| + improve "-c" option to validate the number and type of |
| parameters and compare against expected number/type before |
| deciding which set of parameter-lists to use in tparm calls. |
| + improve check for errors detected in tparm. |
| + improve format of output, to ensure that the messages contain |
| only printable text. |
| + modify to eliminate unnecessary "\" to escape ":" in terminfo |
| format. |
| + remove check that assumes that none or both parameterized and |
| non-parameterized margin-setting capabilities are present. |
| |
| toe |
| |
| + modify output of "toe -as" to show first description found |
| rather than the last. |
| + add a check to ensure that a "termcap file" is text rather |
| than binary. |
| |
| tput |
| |
| + modify to allow multiple commands per line. |
| + improve parameter-checking by analyzing all extended string |
| capabilities, e.g., as used in the Cs and Ms capabilities of |
| the tmux description. |
| + make warning messages consistently using alias names when |
| those are used, rather than the underlying program's name. |
| + improve usage message for aliases such as clear, by |
| eliminating tput-specific portions. |
| + modify initialization to avoid opening /dev/tty for cases |
| other than reset/init, e.g., for clear. |
| |
| Examples |
| |
| Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made to the |
| ncurses-examples. Most of this activity aimed at improving the |
| test-packages. A few changes are more generally useful, e.g., for the |
| main ncurses test-program, and for analyzing traces using the |
| tracemunch script: |
| * add "-r" option to the dots test-programs, to help with scripting |
| a performance comparison. |
| * build-fix for test_opaque, for configurations without opaque |
| curses structs, e.g., ncurses 5.7. |
| * improve tracemunch logic for "RUN" compaction. |
| * improve tracemunch's coverage of form/menu/panel libraries. |
| * improve tracemunch's checking/reporting the type for the first |
| parameter, e.g., "WINDOW*" rather than "#1". |
| * modify tracemunch and the panel library to show readable traces |
| for panel- and user-pointers. |
| |
| There are other new demo/test programs and reusable examples: |
| |
| back_ground |
| to exercise the wide-character background functions. |
| |
| move_field |
| to demonstrate move_field, and a stub for a corresponding demo |
| of dup_field. |
| |
| test_tparm |
| for checking tparm changes. |
| |
| Terminal database |
| |
| There are several new terminal descriptions: |
| |
| absolute, att610+cvis, foot, foot-direct, hp98550-color, |
| hpterm-color2, hterm, hterm-256color, linux-s, putty+keypad, |
| putty+screen, putty-screen, screen.linux-s, scrt/securecrt, |
| tmux-direct, vt220+cvis, vt220+cvis8, vt220+pcedit, vt220+vtedit, |
| vt220-base, vt52+keypad, xterm+256color2, xterm+88color2, |
| xterm-direct16, xterm-direct256, xterm+nofkeys, and |
| xterm+nopcfkeys. |
| |
| There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some were |
| updates to several descriptions: |
| * correct use-ordering in some xterm-direct flavors |
| * fix some sgr inconsistencies in d230c, ibm6153, ibm6154, |
| ncrvt100an |
| * improve vt50h and vt52 based on DECScope manual |
| * use hp+arrows in a few places |
| * use hp+pfk-cr in a few places |
| * use vt220+cvis in st, terminology, termite since they ignore |
| blinking-cursor detail in att610+cvis |
| |
| while others affected specific descriptions. These were retested, to |
| take into account changes by their developers: |
| |
| kitty+common, mlterm3, ms-terminal |
| |
| while these are specific fixes based on reviewing documentation, user |
| reports, or warnings from tic: |
| |
| aaa+dec, aaa+rv |
| correct rmacs/smacs |
| |
| aaa+rv |
| correct sgr |
| |
| icl6404 |
| correct csr |
| |
| kitty |
| use att610+cvis, xterm+tmux and ansi+enq |
| |
| konsole-base |
| re-enable "bel" |
| |
| linux2.6 |
| fix pound-sign mapping in acsc |
| |
| linux3.0 |
| modify to reflect default mapping of shift-tab by kbd 1.14 |
| |
| pccons |
| fill in some missing pieces, to make it comparable to the vt220 |
| entry |
| |
| putty |
| use vt100+fnkeys, add rep |
| |
| screen |
| use vt100+enq |
| |
| terminator |
| corrected tsl capability |
| |
| ti916 |
| correct cup |
| |
| tmux |
| change kbs to ^? |
| |
| vt220 |
| use vt220+cvis |
| |
| vt420+lrmm |
| add smglp and smgrp |
| |
| vt420 |
| use vt420+lrmm |
| |
| xterm-new |
| add nel |
| |
| xterm-vt52 |
| use vt52+keypad |
| |
| A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal capabilities): |
| * add shifted Linux console keys in linux+sfkeys entry for |
| screen.linux |
| * add Smulx to alacritty |
| * add kbeg to xterm+keypad to accommodate termcap applications |
| * add extensions in xterm+tmux and ecma+strikeout to ms-terminal, |
| but cancel the non-working Cr and Ms capabilities |
| |
| Documentation |
| |
| As usual, this release |
| * improves documentation by describing new features, |
| * attempts to improve the description of features which users have |
| found confusing |
| * fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were described |
| in the NEWS file but treated sketchily in manual pages. |
| |
| In addition to providing background information to explain these |
| features and show how they evolved, there are corrections, |
| clarifications, etc.: |
| * Corrections: |
| + make opts extension for getcchar work as documented for |
| ncurses 6.1, adding "-g" flag to demo_new_pair to illustrate. |
| + modify tset "-q" option to refrain from modifying terminal |
| modes, to match the documentation. |
| * New/improved history and portability sections: |
| + improve documentation for tparm and static/dynamic variables. |
| + add history note to curs_scanw.3x for <stdarg.h> and |
| <varargs.h> |
| + add history note to curs_printw.3x for <stdarg.h> and |
| <varargs.h> |
| + add portability note to ncurses.3x regarding <stdarg.h> |
| + add historical notes to tput, curses-terminfo and |
| curses-color manpages based on source-code for SVr2, SVr3 and |
| SVr4. |
| + improve history section for tset manpage based on the 1BSD |
| tarball, which preceded BSD's SCCS checkins by more than |
| three years. |
| * Other improvements: |
| + explain in ncurses.3x that functions in the tinfo library do |
| not rely upon wide-characters. |
| + improve manual page for panel library, extending the |
| portability section as well as documenting error-returns. |
| + add section on margins to terminfo.5, adapted from X/Open |
| Curses. |
| + improve man/term.5 section on legacy storage format. |
| + add a note in terminfo.5 explaining that no-parameter strings |
| such as sgr0 or cnorm should not be used with tparm. |
| + improve description of BSD-style padding in curs_termcap.3x |
| + improve discussion of padding versus tparm and tputs in |
| man/curs_terminfo.3x |
| + add a note in manual page to explain ungetch vs unget_wch. |
| + improve description of error-returns in waddch and waddnstr |
| manual pages. |
| |
| There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates are to |
| existing pages). |
| |
| Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way the |
| information is presented. For instance, hyphenation is suppressed in |
| the HTML files generated from manual pages because an upgrade to groff |
| gave noticeably poorer results, interfering with the process of |
| creating links between the resulting webpages. |
| |
| Interesting bug-fixes |
| |
| While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses 6.3, |
| only a few (the reason for this release) were both important and |
| interesting. Most of the bug-fixes were for local issues which did not |
| affect compatibility across releases. Since those are detailed in the |
| NEWS file no elaboration is needed here. |
| |
| The interesting bugs were: |
| * modify wbkgd and wbkgrnd to avoid storing a null in the background |
| character, because it may be used in cases where the corresponding |
| 0x80 is not treated as a null. |
| This was a regression introduced in ncurses 6.2 (reported on the |
| mailing list), for which the workaround was to specify a blank for |
| the background character. |
| * remove output-related checks for nl/nonl (also reported on the |
| mailing list). |
| * improve tparm implementation of %P and %g, more closely matching |
| SVr4 terminfo. Those denote static and dynamic variables in |
| terminfo expressions. |
| Exactly what those terms meant was never documented before in any |
| implementation of curses, aside from source code. Unlike the other |
| two fixes, the problem was discovered while studying OpenBSD's |
| version of tset. |
| |
| Configuration changes |
| |
| Major changes |
| |
| There are no major changes. Several new options were added to ease |
| integration of packages with systems using different versions of GNAT |
| and ncurses. Also, improvements were made to configure checks. |
| |
| Configuration options |
| |
| There are a few new/modified configure options: |
| |
| --enable-fvisibility |
| new configure option and check for gcc -fvisibility=hidden |
| feature |
| |
| --enable-leaks |
| corrected to allow turning leak-checking off later in a set of |
| options. |
| |
| --enable-stdnoreturn |
| new configure option makes the _Noreturn keyword optional to |
| ease transition. |
| |
| --disable-pkg-ldflags |
| revised option also controls whether $LDFLAGS from the build is |
| provided in "-config" and ".pc" files. |
| |
| --disable-root-access |
| add configure option which tells ncurses to disallow most |
| file-opens by setuid processes. |
| |
| --disable-wattr-macros |
| changed default to help packagers who reuse wide ncursesw |
| header file with non-wide ncurses library. |
| |
| --with-pkg-config-libdir |
| revised option uses the actual search path from pkg-config or |
| pkgconf using the output from --debug. |
| |
| --with-ada-libname |
| --with-form-libname |
| --with-menu-libname |
| --with-panel-libname |
| new several --with-xxx-libname options, to help with pkgsrc |
| |
| Portability |
| |
| Many of the portability changes are implemented via the configure |
| script: |
| * add a special case in the configure script to work around one of |
| the build-time breakages reported for OpenBSD 6 here: |
| |
| https://www.mail-archive.com/bugs@openbsd.org/msg13200.html |
| * modify configure check for libtool to prevent accidental use of an |
| OpenBSD program which uses the same name. |
| * modify configuration checks for build-time tic/infocmp to use |
| AC_CHECK_TOOL. That can still be overridden by --with-tic-path and |
| --with-infocmp-path when fallbacks are used, but even if not using |
| fallbacks, the improved check may help with cross-compiling. |
| * relax modification-time comparison in CF_LINK_FUNCS to allow it to |
| accept link() function with NFS filesystems which change the mtime |
| on the link target, e.g., several BSD systems. |
| * modify configure check for c89/c99 aliases of clang to use its |
| -std option instead, because some platforms, in particular macOS, |
| do not provide workable c89/c99 aliases. |
| * modify CF_NCURSES_CONFIG to work around Xcode's c99 "-W" option, |
| which conflicts with conventional use for passing linker options. |
| * modify configure scripts to filter out redefinitions of |
| _XOPEN_SOURCE, e.g., for NetBSD which generally supports 500, but |
| 600 is needed for ncursesw. |
| |
| Here are some of the other portability fixes: |
| * change configure-check and source-code for gcc's noreturn |
| attribute to assume it is a prefix rather than suffix, matching |
| c11's _Noreturn convention. |
| * modify mk-1st.awk to account for extra-suffix configure option. |
| * build-fix for termsort module when configured with termcap. |
| * modify configure script and makefiles to support ".PHONY" make |
| program feature. |
| * amend libtool configuration to add dependency for install.tic, |
| etc., in ncurses/Makefile on the lower-level libraries. |
| * modify Ada95 source-generation utility to write to a file given as |
| parameter rather than to the standard output, allowing builds with |
| MinGW. |
| * amend tic/infocmp check to allow for the respective tool's |
| absence. |
| * build-fixes for gnat 10.1.1, whose gnatmake drops integration with |
| gprbuild. |
| * correct configure version-check/warning for g++ to allow for 10.x |
| _________________________________________________________________ |
| |
| Features of ncurses |
| |
| The ncurses package is fully upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V |
| Release 4) curses: |
| * All of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are documented). |
| * ncurses supports all of the for SVr4 curses features including |
| keyboard mapping, color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and |
| automatic recognition of keypad and function keys. |
| * ncurses provides these SVr4 add-on libraries (not part of X/Open |
| Curses): |
| + the panels library, supporting a stack of windows with |
| backing store. |
| + the menus library, supporting a uniform but flexible |
| interface for menu programming. |
| + the form library, supporting data collection through |
| on-screen forms. |
| * ncurses's terminal database is fully compatible with that used by |
| SVr4 curses. |
| + ncurses supports user-defined capabilities which it can see, |
| but which are hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the |
| same terminal database. |
| + It can be optionally configured to match the format used in |
| related systems such as AIX and Tru64. |
| + Alternatively, ncurses can be configured to use hashed |
| databases rather than the directory of files used by SVr4 |
| curses. |
| * The ncurses utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo |
| entries for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as |
| the HP-UX and AIX ports. |
| |
| The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4: |
| * 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, and most EXTENDED features). It includes many |
| function calls not supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of |
| all calls is documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only). |
| * Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost |
| corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character |
| capability. |
| * Ada95 and C++ bindings. |
| * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and FreeBSD |
| and OS/2 console windows. |
| * Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package. |
| * The function wresize allows you to resize windows, preserving |
| their data. |
| * The function use_default_colors allows you to use the terminal's |
| default colors for the default color pair, achieving the effect of |
| transparent colors. |
| * The functions keyok and define_key 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. |
| * Support for direct-color terminals, such as modern xterm. |
| * Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm. |
| * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and modern xterm. |
| * Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a |
| cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's |
| or System V's. |
| * 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. |
| * 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. |
| * 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). |
| * The tic/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability to |
| translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension |
| sets. |
| * A BSD-like tset utility is provided. |
| * 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. |
| * 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.) |
| * 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. |
| * The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see |
| exactly what terminal types are available on the system. |
| * The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry point |
| has a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be |
| prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with |
| #undef. |
| * Extensive documentation is provided (see the Additional Reading |
| section of the ncurses FAQ for online documentation). |
| |
| Applications using ncurses |
| |
| The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs |
| (including a few games). These are available separately as |
| ncurses-examples |
| |
| The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of |
| applications including: |
| |
| aptitude |
| FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager |
| |
| https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude |
| |
| cdk |
| Curses Development Kit |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/cdk/ |
| |
| ded |
| directory-editor |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/ded/ |
| |
| dialog |
| the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the |
| basis for similar install/configure applications on many |
| systems. |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/dialog/ |
| |
| lynx |
| the text WWW browser |
| |
| https://lynx.invisible-island.net/ |
| |
| mutt |
| mail utility |
| |
| http://www.mutt.org/ |
| |
| ncftp |
| file-transfer utility |
| |
| https://www.ncftp.com/ |
| |
| nvi |
| New vi uses ncurses. |
| |
| https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi |
| |
| ranger |
| A console file manager with VI key bindings in Python. |
| |
| https://ranger.github.io/ |
| |
| tin |
| newsreader, supporting color, MIME |
| |
| http://www.tin.org/ |
| |
| vifm |
| File manager with vi like keybindings |
| |
| https://vifm.info/ |
| |
| as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone: |
| |
| minicom |
| terminal emulator for serial modem connections |
| |
| https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/ |
| |
| mosh |
| a replacement for ssh. |
| |
| https://mosh.org/ |
| |
| tack |
| terminfo action checker |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tack.html |
| |
| tmux |
| terminal multiplexor |
| |
| https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki |
| |
| vile |
| vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo, termcap or |
| curses interfaces. |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/vile/ |
| |
| and finally, those which use only the termcap interface: |
| |
| emacs |
| text editor |
| |
| https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ |
| |
| less |
| The most commonly used pager (a program that displays text |
| files). |
| |
| http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/ |
| |
| screen |
| terminal multiplexor |
| |
| https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/ |
| |
| vim |
| text editor |
| |
| https://www.vim.org/ |
| |
| Development activities |
| |
| Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses from a previous package pcurses, |
| written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S. Raymond continued development. |
| Juergen Pfeifer wrote most of the form and menu libraries. |
| |
| Ongoing development work is done by Thomas E. Dickey. Thomas E. Dickey |
| has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software Foundation, which |
| held a copyright on ncurses for releases 4.2 through 6.1. Following |
| the release of ncurses 6.1, effective as of release 6.2, copyright for |
| ncurses reverted to Thomas E. Dickey (see the ncurses FAQ for |
| additional information). |
| |
| Contact the current maintainers at |
| |
| bug-ncurses@gnu.org |
| |
| To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to |
| |
| bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org |
| |
| containing the line: |
| |
| subscribe <name>@<host.domain> |
| |
| This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development |
| and testing of this package. |
| |
| Beta versions of ncurses are made available at |
| |
| ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/ and |
| https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/ . |
| |
| Patches to the current release are made available at |
| |
| ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.2/ and |
| https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.2/ . |
| |
| There is an archive of the mailing list here: |
| |
| http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses (also https) |
| |
| Related resources |
| |
| The release notes make scattered references to these pages, which may |
| be interesting by themselves: |
| * ncurses licensing |
| * Symbol versioning in ncurses |
| * Comments on ncurses versus slang (S-Lang) |
| * Comments on OpenBSD |
| * tack - terminfo action checker |
| * tctest - termcap library checker |
| * Terminal Database |
| |
| Other resources |
| |
| The distribution provides a newer version of the terminfo-format |
| terminal description file once maintained by Eric Raymond . Unlike the |
| older version, the termcap and terminfo data are provided in the same |
| file, which also provides several user-definable extensions beyond the |
| X/Open specification. |
| |
| You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not |
| covered in the terminfo file at Richard Shuford's archive . The |
| collection of computer manuals at bitsavers.org has also been useful. |
| |
| * Overview |
| * Release Notes |
| + Library improvements |
| o New features |
| o Other improvements |
| + Program improvements |
| o Utilities |
| o Examples |
| + Terminal database |
| + Documentation |
| + Interesting bug-fixes |
| + Configuration changes |
| o Major changes |
| o Configuration options |
| + Portability |
| * Features of ncurses |
| * Applications using ncurses |
| * Development activities |
| * Related resources |
| * Other resources |