| Announcing ncurses 6.5 |
| |
| 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: |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/ or |
| https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/ . |
| |
| It is also available at the GNU distribution site |
| |
| https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ . |
| |
| Release Notes |
| |
| These notes are for ncurses 6.5, released April 27, 2024. |
| |
| This release is designed to be source-compatible with ncurses 5.0 |
| through 6.4; 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 robustness |
| issues. The release notes also mention some other bug-fixes, but are |
| focused on new features and improvements to existing features since |
| ncurses 6.4 release. |
| |
| Library improvements |
| |
| New features |
| |
| These are new features: |
| * The low-level terminfo and termcap interfaces are used both by the |
| higher-level curses library, as well as by many applications. |
| The functions which convert parameterized terminal capability |
| strings for output to the terminal (tiparm and tparm) analyze the |
| capability string to determine which parameters are strings (i.e., |
| addresses), versus numbers (not addresses). |
| The library's analysis of a capability string may differ from the |
| calling application's design if environment variables are used to |
| point to an invalid terminal database. This is a longstanding |
| problem with all implementations of terminfo, dating from the |
| early 1980s. |
| Two new functions address this problem: by providing a function |
| which allows the calling application to tell ncurses how many |
| string-parameters to expect: |
| + tiscan_s helps applications check formatting capabilities |
| that would be passed to tiparm_s. |
| + tiparm_s provides applications a way to tell ncurses what the |
| expected parameters are for a capability. |
| * The ncurses library supports a compile-time feature (enabled with |
| the configure --enable-check-size option) which simplifies |
| initialization with terminals which do not negotiate window |
| (screen) size. This is done in setupterm, by providing for using |
| ANSI cursor-position report (in user6/user7 terminfo capabilities) |
| to obtain the screen size if neither environment variables or |
| ioctl is used. |
| The ncurses test-program with options "-E -T" demonstrates this |
| feature. |
| * add functions to query tty-flags in SCREEN |
| |
| This release drops compatibility with obsolete versions of tack, e.g., |
| pre-1.08 |
| |
| Other improvements |
| |
| These are improvements to existing features: |
| * In addition to the new, safer function tiparm_s, ncurses adds |
| checks to make the older tiparm, tparm and tgoto functions safer: |
| + the terminfo functions tiparm and tparm ensure that the |
| capability string comes from the terminal description which |
| ncurses loads, rather than from random data which the |
| application happens to have. |
| + the tgoto function disallows capabilities which its analysis |
| shows will attempt to use string parameters. |
| + ncurses uses internal functions which correspond to tiparm, |
| and tgoto which ensure that the capability strings which are |
| passed to these functions come from the loaded terminal |
| description. |
| * improve check in lib_tparm.c, ensuring that a char* fits into a |
| TPARM_ARG |
| * modify _nc_syserr_abort to use _nc_env_access, rather than only |
| checking root uid |
| * improve thread lock in lib_trace.c |
| * modify flushinp to use file descriptors in SCREEN, rather than |
| from TERMINAL, and check if they are for a terminal, like SVr4 |
| * modify mcprint to use file descriptor in SCREEN, for consistency |
| * modify internal function _nc_read_file_entry to show relevant |
| filename in warnings |
| * improve checks in internal function convert_string for corrupt |
| terminfo entry |
| * review/improve handling of out-of-memory conditions |
| * limit delays to 30 seconds, i.e., padding delays in terminfo, as |
| well as napms and delay_output functions |
| * fix reallocation loop for vsnprintf in _nc_sprintf_string by |
| copying the va_list variable |
| * modify delscreen to limit the windows which it creates to just |
| those associated with the screen |
| * modify endwin to return an error if it is called again without an |
| intervening screen update |
| * modify wenclose to handle pads |
| * eliminate use of PATH_MAX in lib_trace.c |
| * provide for any CCHARW_MAX greater than 1 |
| |
| These are corrections to existing features: |
| * correct loop termination condition in waddnstr and waddnwstr |
| * improve parsing in internal function _nc_msec_cost, allowing a |
| single decimal point |
| * amend parameter check for entire string versus specific length in |
| winsnstr and wins_nwstr to match Solaris; make similar correction |
| to wins_nwstr |
| * correct internal function wadd_wch_literal when adding a |
| non-spacing character to a double-width character |
| * correct definition of Charable macro for non-wide ncurses library |
| . |
| |
| Program improvements |
| |
| Several improvements were made to the utility programs. Some were done |
| to make the infocmp option "-u" option help refactor the terminal |
| database. |
| |
| infocmp |
| |
| + add limit checks for processing extended capabilities with |
| the "-u" option |
| + correct initial alignment of extended capabilities, so that |
| the "-u" option can be used for more than two terminal types |
| + modify "-u" option to not report cancels for strings which |
| were already cancelled in a use'd chunk. |
| + correct an assignment "-u" for detecting if a boolean is |
| unset in a base entry and set in a use'd chunk, i.e., if it |
| was cancelled. |
| |
| tic |
| |
| + correct limit-check when dumping tc/use clause via "-I" |
| + check return value of _nc_save_str, in special case where |
| extended capabilities are processed but the terminal |
| description was not initialized |
| + modify check for multiply defined aliases to report problems |
| within the current runtime rather than for conflicts with |
| pre-existing terminal descriptions. |
| + disallow using $TERMINFO or $HOME/.terminfo when "-o" option |
| is used |
| |
| tput and tset |
| |
| + add "-v" option to tput, to show warnings |
| + modify reset command to avoid altering clocal if the terminal |
| uses a modem |
| + modify reset feature to avoid 1-second sleep if running in a |
| pseudo-terminal |
| |
| Examples |
| |
| Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made to the |
| ncurses-examples: |
| * modify test_tparm to account for extended capabilities |
| * corrected mouse mask in test/testcurs.c |
| * modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates |
| * modify test/test_mouse.c to use curses api for raw/noraw |
| * modify test/clip_printw.c to optionally test non-wrapped updates |
| |
| There is one new demo/test programs: |
| |
| test/test_endwin.c |
| This program shows the return-status from endwin with different |
| combinations of endwin (repeated), initscr, newterm. |
| |
| Terminal database |
| |
| There are several new terminal descriptions: |
| * ansi+apparrows |
| * contour |
| * linux+kbs for terminals which imitate xterm's behavior with Linux |
| * rio, rio-direct |
| * mostlike |
| * ms-vt100-16color, winconsole |
| * vt100+noapp, vt100+noapp+pc, xterm+app+pc, xterm+decedit from |
| xterm #389 |
| * putty+cursor to reflect amending of modified cursor-keys in 2021 |
| * wezterm |
| |
| There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some were |
| updates to several descriptions, using the infocmp "-u" option in a |
| script to determine which building-block entries could be used to |
| replace multiple capability settings (and trim redundant information). |
| |
| Other changes include: |
| * document XF, kxIN and kxOUT |
| * add note on sun regarding wscons/cmdtool/shelltool |
| * remove DECCOLM+DECSCLM from foot |
| * add xterm+focus to foot+base |
| * add ecma+strikeout to putty |
| * use CSI 3J in vte-2017 |
| * use oldxterm+sm+1006 in vte-2014 |
| * modify xgterm to work around line-drawing bug |
| * add xterm focus mode 1004 to xterm+focus as fe/fd capabilities, |
| like vim. |
| * add xterm+focus to alacritty+common |
| * add XR/xr, to work with vim, and use RV/rv to denote DA2 and its |
| response |
| * add XF flag to xterm+focus so that termcap applications can be |
| aware of terminals which may support focus in/out |
| * use xterm+focus in xterm-p370 and tmux |
| * remove xterm+sm+1006 from tmux |
| * NetBSD-related fixes for x68k and wsvt25 |
| |
| 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: |
| + add assignment in CF_MAN_PAGES to fill in value for |
| TERMINFO_DIRS in ncurses, terminfo and tic manpages. |
| + clarify interaction of -R option versus -C, -I and -r in |
| infocmp manpage. |
| + correct manpage description of panel_hidden. |
| + improve manpage description for addch versus unctrl format |
| used for non-printable characters. |
| + improve manpages discussing file descriptors in low-level |
| functions. |
| + improve description of search rules for terminal descriptions |
| in terminfo manpage. |
| + modify dist.mk to avoid passing developer's comments in |
| manpages into the generated html documentation. |
| + modify test-package "ncurses6-doc" to use manpage-aliases, |
| which in turn required a change to the configure script to |
| factor in the extra-suffix option when deriving alias names. |
| * New/improved history and portability sections: |
| + add information about "ttycap", termcap's forerunner, to |
| tset.1 |
| + document limitations of tparm, and error-returns in |
| curs_terminfo.3x |
| + document limitations of tgoto, and error-returns in |
| curs_termcap.3x |
| * Other improvements: |
| + This release has many changes to improve the formatting and |
| style of the manpages. |
| + Manpages now use consistent section-naming, page headers and |
| footers (including the modification date for each page). |
| + Table layout has been revised. |
| |
| There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates are to |
| existing pages). |
| |
| Interesting bug-fixes |
| |
| The changes to tparm, tgoto which improve the design of the low-level |
| interfaces are interesting, but are not bug-fixes per se. |
| |
| Configuration changes |
| |
| Major changes |
| |
| These are the major changes (aside from introducing tiparm_s): |
| * use wide-character (ncursesw) by default |
| * use opaque typedefs by default |
| |
| However, most of the work on configure scripts was done to reduce |
| warnings within the configure script: |
| * intrusive warnings from GNU grep regarding fgrep and egrep |
| * fatal errors in compile-checks, arising from recent "Modern C" |
| efforts by some developers which caused longstanding configure |
| checks to fail. |
| After repairing the configure script, none of that activity |
| affected ncurses because stricter warnings are used routinely in |
| development. |
| |
| Other improvements made to configure checks include |
| * use string-hacks in alloc_entry.c, alloc_type.c and hardscroll.c, |
| overlooked due to compiler changes in recent OpenBSD releases |
| * revise progs.priv.h to provide for NC_ISATTY reuse |
| * configure check for MB_LEN_MAX provides warning as needed |
| * trim a space after some "-R" options, fixing builds for |
| applications built using clang and ncurses on Solaris |
| * work around misconfiguration of MacPorts gcc13, which exposes |
| invalid definition of MB_LEN_MAX in gcc's fallback copy of |
| limits.h |
| * modified experimental Windows driver works with xterm mouse |
| protocol |
| |
| Configuration options |
| |
| There are a few new configure options: |
| |
| --disable-setuid-environ |
| Compile with environment restriction, so certain environment |
| variables are not available when running via a setuid/setgid |
| application. These are (for example $TERMINFO) those that allow |
| the search path for the terminfo or termcap entry to be |
| customized. |
| |
| A setuid/setgid application inherits its environment variables |
| from the current user, in contrast to sudo which may limit the |
| environment variables that ncurses uses. |
| |
| --enable-check-size |
| Compile-in feature to detect screensize for terminals which do |
| not advertise their screensize, e.g., serial terminals. |
| |
| --with-abi-altered=NUM |
| Override the displayed (rather than compiled-in) ABI. Only |
| packagers who have created configurations where the ABI differs |
| from ncurses should be interested in this option. |
| |
| --with-strip-program=XXX |
| When stripping executables during install, use the specified |
| program rather than "strip" overriding program chosen by the |
| install program for stripping executables. |
| |
| These configure options are modified: |
| |
| --with-pkg-config-libdir[=DIR] |
| The optional DIR parameter can now be "auto" to automatically |
| use pkg-config's library directory. |
| |
| The default is $(libdir). |
| |
| --with-xterm-kbs[=XXX] |
| The default is "auto" which tells the configure script to |
| choose BS or DEL according to platform defaults. |
| |
| Portability |
| |
| Many of the portability changes are implemented via the configure |
| script: |
| * add/use configure check for clock_gettime, to supersede |
| gettimeofday. |
| * modify configure script check for pkg-config library directory to |
| take into account an older version 0.15.0 which used |
| PKG_CONFIG_PATH but not PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR |
| * allow for MinGW32-/64-bit configurations to use _DEFAULT_SOURCE |
| * modify CF_XOPEN_SOURCE macro's amend default case to avoid |
| undefining _XOPEN_SOURCE if _POSIX_C_SOURCE is defined |
| * updated configure script macro CF_XOPEN_SOURCE, for uClibc-ng |
| * modify version-check for gcc/g++, now works for msys2 |
| * build-fixes related to configure-options and/or platform: |
| + fix for --enable-fvisibility |
| + fix for unusual values of --with-rel-version |
| + fix for unusual values of --with-abi-version |
| + fix for --disable-tcap-names |
| + fix for termcap in nc_access.h |
| * other configure-script improvements: |
| + recent msys2 headers work with _DEFAULT_SOURCE; amend check |
| + use $ac_includes_default in most cases where stdlib.h should |
| work |
| + use #error consistently vs "make an error" |
| + add configure macro for gettimeofday vs inline check |
| |
| Here are some of the other portability fixes: |
| * modify configure scripts/makefiles to omit KEY_RESIZE if the |
| corresponding SIGWINCH feature is disabled |
| * increase MB_CUR_MAX to 16, matching glibc's MB_LEN_MAX |
| * add BSD erase2 to characters handled by tset/reset |
| * use getauxval when available, to improve setuid/setgid checks |
| * set dwShareMode in calls to CreateConsoleScreenBuffer |
| * use CreateFile with "CONIN$", "CONOUT$" rather than GetStdHandle |
| to obtain a handle on the actual console, avoiding redirection in |
| the MinGW/Win32 configurations |
| * modify MinGW driver to return KEY_BACKSPACE when an unmodified |
| VK_BACK virtual key is entered |
| * modify MinGW configuration to provide for running in MSYS/MSYS2 |
| shells, assuming ConPTY support |
| _________________________________________________________________ |
| |
| 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 the features of SVr4 curses including keyboard |
| mapping, color, form drawing with ACS characters, and automatic |
| recognition of keypad and function keys. |
| * ncurses provides work-alike replacements of SVr4 supplemental |
| libraries based on curses, but which were not specified by X/Open |
| Curses: |
| + the panel library, supporting a stack of windows with backing |
| store |
| + the menu 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 that 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 almost all 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. |
| * X/Open Curses permits most functions it specifies to be made |
| available as macros as well. ncurses does this |
| + to improve performance, e.g., for operations composed of |
| simpler functions such as cursor movement following by adding |
| text to the screen, |
| + to simplify the implementation by reusing functions which use |
| common parameters, e.g., the standard screen stdscr, and |
| + to provide functions that return values via their parameters |
| Except for the last case, ncurses provides a non-macro |
| implementation of the function. If the macro definition is |
| disabled with #undef, or by defining NCURSES_NOMACROS the function |
| may be linked (and its calls will be checked against the |
| prototype). |
| * 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/the-berkeley- |
| vi-editor-home-page |
| |
| 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://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/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 |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/current/ and |
| https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/ . |
| |
| Patches to the current release are made available at |
| |
| https://invisible-island.net/archives/ncurses/6.4/ and |
| https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.4/ . |
| |
| There is an archive of the mailing list here: |
| |
| https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses . |
| |
| 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 Curses specification. |
| |
| You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not |
| covered in the terminfo file in Richard Shuford's archive (original). |
| 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 |