1------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2-- Copyright (c) 1998-2004,2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. -- 3-- -- 4-- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a -- 5-- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the -- 6-- "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including -- 7-- without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, -- 8-- distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell copies -- 9-- of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished -- 10-- to do so, subject to the following conditions: -- 11-- -- 12-- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included -- 13-- in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. -- 14-- -- 15-- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS -- 16-- OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF -- 17-- MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN -- 18-- NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, -- 19-- DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR -- 20-- OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE -- 21-- USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. -- 22-- -- 23-- Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright -- 24-- holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the -- 25-- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written -- 26-- authorization. -- 27------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28-- $Id: README,v 1.23 2006/04/22 22:19:37 tom Exp $ 29------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 README file for the ncurses package 31 32See the file ANNOUNCE for a summary of ncurses features and ports. 33See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install ncurses. 34See the file NEWS for a release history and bug-fix notes. 35See the file TO-DO for things that still need doing, including known bugs. 36 37Browse the file misc/ncurses-intro.html for narrative descriptions of how 38to use ncurses and the panel, menu, and form libraries. 39 40Browse the file doc/html/hackguide.html for a tour of the package internals. 41 42ROADMAP AND PACKAGE OVERVIEW: 43 44You should be reading this file in a directory called: ncurses-d.d, where d.d 45is the current version number (see the dist.mk file in this directory for 46that). There should be a number of subdirectories, including `c++', `form', 47`man', `menu', `misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs', `test', 'tack' and `Ada95'. 48(The 'tack' program may be distributed separately). 49 50A full build/install of this package typically installs several libraries, a 51handful of utilities, and a database hierarchy. Here is an inventory of the 52pieces: 53 54The libraries are: 55 56 libncurses.a (normal) 57 libncurses.so (shared) 58 libncurses_g.a (debug and trace code enabled) 59 libncurses_p.a (profiling enabled) 60 61 libpanel.a (normal) 62 libpanel.so (shared) 63 libpanel_g.a (debug and trace code enabled) 64 65 libmenu.a (normal) 66 libmenu.so (shared) 67 libmenu_g.a (debug enabled) 68 69 libform.a (normal) 70 libform.so (shared) 71 libform_g.a (debug enabled) 72 73If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the 74library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support 75wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files 76are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character 77features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character 78library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character 79version. 80 81The ncurses libraries implement the curses API. The panel, menu and forms 82libraries implement clones of the SVr4 panel, menu and forms APIs. The source 83code for these lives in the `ncurses', `panel', `menu', and `form' directories 84respectively. 85 86In the `c++' directory, you'll find code that defines an interface to the 87curses, forms, menus and panels library packaged as C++ classes, and a demo program in C++ 88to test it. These class definition modules are not installed by the 'make 89install.libs' rule as libncurses++. 90 91In the `Ada95' directory, you'll find code and documentation for an 92Ada95 binding of the curses API, to be used with the GNAT compiler. 93This binding is built by a normal top-level `make' if configure detects 94an usable version of GNAT (3.11 or above). It is not installed automatically. 95See the Ada95 directory for more build and installation instructions and 96for documentation of the binding. 97 98To do its job, the ncurses code needs your terminal type to be set in the 99environment variable TERM (normally set by your OS; under UNIX, getty(1) 100typically does this, but you can override it in your .profile); and, it needs a 101database of terminal descriptions in which to look up your terminal type's 102capabilities. 103 104In older (V7/BSD) versions of curses, the database was a flat text file, 105/etc/termcap; in newer (USG/USL) versions, the database is a hierarchy of 106fast-loading binary description blocks under /usr/lib/terminfo. These binary 107blocks are compiled from an improved editable text representation called 108`terminfo' format (documented in man/terminfo.5). The ncurses library can use 109either /etc/termcap or the compiled binary terminfo blocks, but prefers the 110second form. 111 112In the `misc' directory, there is a text file terminfo.src, in editable 113terminfo format, which can be used to generate the terminfo binaries (that's 114what make install.data does). If the package was built with the 115--enable-termcap option enabled, and the ncurses library cannot find a terminfo 116description for your terminal, it will fall back to the termcap file supplied 117with your system (which the ncurses package installation leaves strictly 118alone). 119 120The utilities are as follows: 121 122 tic -- terminfo source to binary compiler 123 infocmp -- terminfo binary to source decompiler/comparator 124 clear -- emits clear-screen for current terminal 125 tput -- shell-script access to terminal capabilities. 126 toe -- table of entries utility 127 tset -- terminal-initialization utility 128 129The first two (tic and infocmp) are used for manipulating terminfo 130descriptions; the next two (clear and tput) are for use in shell scripts. The 131last (tset) is provided for 4.4BSD compatibility. The source code for all of 132these lives in the `progs' directory. 133 134Detailed documentation for all libraries and utilities can be found in the 135`man' and `doc' directories. An HTML introduction to ncurses, panels, and 136menus programming lives in the `doc/html' directory. Manpages in HTML format 137are under `doc/html/man'. 138 139The `test' directory contains programs that can be used to verify or 140demonstrate the functions of the ncurses libraries. See test/README for 141descriptions of these programs. Notably, the `ncurses' utility is designed to 142help you systematically exercise the library functions. 143 144AUTHORS: 145 146Pavel Curtis: 147 wrote the original ncurses 148 149Zeyd M. Ben-Halim: 150 port of original to Linux and many enhancements. 151 152Thomas Dickey (maintainer for 1.9.9g through 4.1, resuming with FSF's 5.0): 153 configuration scripts, porting, mods to adhere to XSI Curses in the 154 areas of background color, terminal modes. Also memory leak testing, 155 the wresize, default colors and key definition extensions and numerous 156 bug fixes (more than half of those enumerated in NEWS beginning with 157 the internal release 1.8.9). 158 159Florian La Roche (official maintainer for FSF's ncurses 4.2) 160 Beginning with release 4.2, ncurses is distributed under an MIT-style 161 license. 162 163Eric S. Raymond: 164 the man pages, infocmp(1), tput(1), clear(1), captoinfo(1), tset(1), 165 toe(1), most of tic(1), trace levels, the HTML intro, wgetnstr() and 166 many other entry points, the cursor-movement optimization, the 167 scroll-pack optimizer for vertical motions, the mouse interface and 168 xterm mouse support, and the ncurses test program. 169 170Juergen Pfeifer 171 The menu and form libraries, C++ bindings for ncurses, menus, forms and 172 panels, as well as the Ada95 binding. Ongoing support for panel. 173 174CONTRIBUTORS: 175 176Alexander V. Lukyanov 177 for numerous fixes and improvements to the optimization logic. 178 179David MacKenzie 180 for first-class bug-chasing and methodical testing. 181 182Ross Ridge 183 for the code that hacks termcap parameterized strings into terminfo. 184 185Warren Tucker and Gerhard Fuernkranz, 186 for writing and sending the panel library. 187 188Hellmuth Michaelis, 189 for many patches and testing the optimization code. 190 191Eric Newton, Ulrich Drepper, and Anatoly Ivasyuk: 192 the C++ code. 193 194Jonathan Ross, 195 for lessons in using sed. 196 197Keith Bostic (maintainer of 4.4BSD curses) 198 for help, criticism, comments, bug-finding, and being willing to 199 deep-six BSD curses for this one when it grew up. 200 201Richard Stallman, 202 for his commitment to making ncurses free software. 203 204Countless other people have contributed by reporting bugs, sending fixes, 205suggesting improvements, and generally whining about ncurses :-) 206 207BUGS: 208 See the INSTALL file for bug and developer-list addresses. 209 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines 210 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly. 211