1------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2-- Copyright 2020-2021,2023 Thomas E. Dickey -- 3-- Copyright 1998-2012,2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc. -- 4-- -- 5-- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a -- 6-- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the -- 7-- "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including -- 8-- without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, -- 9-- distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell copies -- 10-- of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished -- 11-- to do so, subject to the following conditions: -- 12-- -- 13-- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included -- 14-- in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. -- 15-- -- 16-- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS -- 17-- OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF -- 18-- MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN -- 19-- NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, -- 20-- DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR -- 21-- OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE -- 22-- USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. -- 23-- -- 24-- Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright -- 25-- holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the -- 26-- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written -- 27-- authorization. -- 28------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29-- $Id: README,v 1.31 2023/10/28 14:49:04 tom Exp $ 30------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 README file for the ncurses package 32 33See the file ANNOUNCE for a summary of ncurses features and ports. 34See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install ncurses. 35See the file NEWS for a release history and bug-fix notes. 36See the file TO-DO for things that still need doing, including known bugs. 37 38Browse the file doc/html/ncurses-intro.html for narrative descriptions of how 39to use ncurses and the panel, menu, and form libraries. 40 41Browse the file doc/html/hackguide.html for a tour of the package internals. 42 43Find plain text versions of both of these documents in doc/. 44 45ROADMAP AND PACKAGE OVERVIEW: 46 47You should be reading this file in a directory called: ncurses-d.d, where d.d 48is the current version number (see the dist.mk file in this directory for 49that). There should be a number of subdirectories, including `c++', `form', 50`man', `menu', `misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs', `test', and `Ada95'. 51 52A full build/install of this package typically installs several libraries, a 53handful of utilities, and a database hierarchy. Here is an inventory of the 54pieces: 55 56The libraries are: 57 58 libncurses.a (normal) 59 libncurses.so (shared) 60 libncurses_g.a (debug and trace code enabled) 61 libncurses_p.a (profiling enabled) 62 63 libpanel.a (normal) 64 libpanel.so (shared) 65 libpanel_g.a (debug and trace code enabled) 66 67 libmenu.a (normal) 68 libmenu.so (shared) 69 libmenu_g.a (debug enabled) 70 71 libform.a (normal) 72 libform.so (shared) 73 libform_g.a (debug enabled) 74 75If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the 76library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support 77wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files 78are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character 79features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character 80library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character 81version. 82 83If you configure using the --enable-reentrant option, a "t" is appended to the 84library names (e.g., libncursest.a) and the resulting libraries have a 85different binary interface, making the ncurses interface more opaque. 86 87The ncurses libraries implement the curses API. The panel, menu and forms 88libraries implement clones of the SVr4 panel, menu and forms APIs. The source 89code for these lives in the `ncurses', `panel', `menu', and `form' directories 90respectively. 91 92In the `c++' directory, you'll find code that defines an interface to the 93curses, forms, menus and panels library packaged as C++ classes, and a demo 94program in C++ to test it. These class definition modules are not installed 95by the 'make install.libs' rule as libncurses++. 96 97In the `Ada95' directory, you'll find code and documentation for an 98Ada95 binding of the curses API, to be used with the GNAT compiler. 99This binding is built by a normal top-level `make' if configure detects 100an usable version of GNAT (3.11 or above). It is not installed automatically. 101See the Ada95 directory for more build and installation instructions and 102for documentation of the binding. 103 104To do its job, the ncurses code needs your terminal type to be set in the 105environment variable TERM (normally set by your OS; under UNIX, getty(1) 106typically does this, but you can override it in your .profile); and, it needs 107a database of terminal descriptions in which to look up your terminal type's 108capabilities. 109 110In older (V7/BSD) versions of curses, the database was a flat text file, 111/etc/termcap; in newer (USG/USL) versions, the database is a hierarchy of 112fast-loading binary description blocks under /usr/lib/terminfo. These binary 113blocks are compiled from an improved editable text representation called 114`terminfo' format (documented in man/terminfo.5). The ncurses library can use 115either /etc/termcap or the compiled binary terminfo blocks, but prefers the 116second form. 117 118In the `misc' directory, there is a text file terminfo.src, in editable 119terminfo format, which can be used to generate the terminfo binaries (that's 120what make install.data does). If the package was built with the 121--enable-termcap option enabled, and the ncurses library cannot find a 122terminfo description for your terminal, it will fall back to the termcap file 123supplied with your system (which the ncurses package installation leaves 124strictly alone). 125 126The utilities are as follows: 127 128 tic -- terminfo source to binary compiler 129 infocmp -- terminfo binary to source decompiler/comparator 130 clear -- emits clear-screen for current terminal 131 tabs -- set tabs on a terminal 132 tput -- shell-script access to terminal capabilities. 133 toe -- table of entries utility 134 tset -- terminal-initialization utility 135 136The first two (tic and infocmp) are used for manipulating terminfo 137descriptions; the next two (clear and tput) are for use in shell scripts. The 138last (tset) is provided for 4.4BSD compatibility. The source code for all of 139these lives in the `progs' directory. 140 141Detailed documentation for all libraries and utilities can be found in the 142`man' and `doc' directories. An HTML introduction to ncurses, panels, and 143menus programming lives in the `doc/html' directory. Manpages in HTML format 144are under `doc/html/man'. 145 146The `test' directory contains programs that can be used to verify or 147demonstrate the functions of the ncurses libraries. See test/README for 148descriptions of these programs. Notably, the `ncurses' utility is designed to 149help you systematically exercise the library functions. 150 151AUTHORS: 152 153Pavel Curtis: 154 wrote the original ncurses 155 156Zeyd M. Ben-Halim: 157 port of original to Linux and many enhancements. 158 159Thomas Dickey (maintainer for 1.9.9g through 4.1, resuming with FSF's 5.0): 160 configuration scripts, porting, mods to adhere to XSI Curses in the 161 areas of background color, terminal modes. Also memory leak testing, 162 the wresize, default colors and key definition extensions and numerous 163 bug fixes -- more than half of those enumerated in NEWS beginning with 164 the internal release 1.8.9, see 165 166 https://invisible-island.net/personal/changelogs.html 167 168Florian La Roche (official maintainer for FSF's ncurses 4.2) 169 Beginning with release 4.2, ncurses is distributed under an MIT-style 170 license. 171 172Eric S. Raymond: 173 the man pages, infocmp(1), tput(1), clear(1), captoinfo(1), tset(1), 174 toe(1), most of tic(1), trace levels, the HTML intro, wgetnstr() and 175 many other entry points, the cursor-movement optimization, the 176 scroll-pack optimizer for vertical motions, the mouse interface and 177 xterm mouse support, and the ncurses test program. 178 179Juergen Pfeifer 180 The menu and form libraries, C++ bindings for ncurses, menus, forms 181 and panels, as well as the Ada95 binding. Ongoing support for panel. 182 183CONTRIBUTORS: 184 185Alexander V. Lukyanov 186 for numerous fixes and improvements to the optimization logic. 187 188David MacKenzie 189 for first-class bug-chasing and methodical testing. 190 191Ross Ridge 192 for the code that hacks termcap parameterized strings into terminfo. 193 194Warren Tucker and Gerhard Fuernkranz, 195 for writing and sending the panel library. 196 197Hellmuth Michaelis, 198 for many patches and testing the optimization code. 199 200Eric Newton, Ulrich Drepper, and Anatoly Ivasyuk: 201 the C++ code. 202 203Jonathan Ross, 204 for lessons in using sed. 205 206Keith Bostic (maintainer of 4.4BSD curses) 207 for help, criticism, comments, bug-finding, and being willing to 208 deep-six BSD curses for this one when it grew up. 209 210Richard Stallman, 211 for his commitment to making ncurses free software. 212 213Countless other people have contributed by reporting bugs, sending fixes, 214suggesting improvements, and generally whining about ncurses :-) 215 216BUGS: 217 See the INSTALL file for bug and developer-list addresses. 218 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines 219 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly. 220 221-- vile:txtmode fc=78 222