1------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2-- Copyright 2020 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 1.28 2020/02/02 23:34:34 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 misc/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 43ROADMAP AND PACKAGE OVERVIEW: 44 45You should be reading this file in a directory called: ncurses-d.d, where d.d 46is the current version number (see the dist.mk file in this directory for 47that). There should be a number of subdirectories, including `c++', `form', 48`man', `menu', `misc', `ncurses', `panel', `progs', `test', 'tack' and `Ada95'. 49(The 'tack' program may be distributed separately). 50 51A full build/install of this package typically installs several libraries, a 52handful of utilities, and a database hierarchy. Here is an inventory of the 53pieces: 54 55The libraries are: 56 57 libncurses.a (normal) 58 libncurses.so (shared) 59 libncurses_g.a (debug and trace code enabled) 60 libncurses_p.a (profiling enabled) 61 62 libpanel.a (normal) 63 libpanel.so (shared) 64 libpanel_g.a (debug and trace code enabled) 65 66 libmenu.a (normal) 67 libmenu.so (shared) 68 libmenu_g.a (debug enabled) 69 70 libform.a (normal) 71 libform.so (shared) 72 libform_g.a (debug enabled) 73 74If you configure using the --enable-widec option, a "w" is appended to the 75library names (e.g., libncursesw.a), and the resulting libraries support 76wide-characters, e.g., via a UTF-8 locale. The corresponding header files 77are compatible with the non-wide-character configuration; wide-character 78features are provided by ifdef's in the header files. The wide-character 79library interfaces are not binary-compatible with the non-wide-character 80version. 81 82If you configure using the --enable-reentrant option, a "t" is appended to the 83library names (e.g., libncursest.a) and the resulting libraries have a 84different binary interface which makes the ncurses interface more "opaque". 85 86The ncurses libraries implement the curses API. The panel, menu and forms 87libraries implement clones of the SVr4 panel, menu and forms APIs. The source 88code for these lives in the `ncurses', `panel', `menu', and `form' directories 89respectively. 90 91In the `c++' directory, you'll find code that defines an interface to the 92curses, forms, menus and panels library packaged as C++ classes, and a demo program in C++ 93to test it. These class definition modules are not installed by the 'make 94install.libs' rule as libncurses++. 95 96In the `Ada95' directory, you'll find code and documentation for an 97Ada95 binding of the curses API, to be used with the GNAT compiler. 98This binding is built by a normal top-level `make' if configure detects 99an usable version of GNAT (3.11 or above). It is not installed automatically. 100See the Ada95 directory for more build and installation instructions and 101for documentation of the binding. 102 103To do its job, the ncurses code needs your terminal type to be set in the 104environment variable TERM (normally set by your OS; under UNIX, getty(1) 105typically does this, but you can override it in your .profile); and, it needs a 106database of terminal descriptions in which to look up your terminal type's 107capabilities. 108 109In older (V7/BSD) versions of curses, the database was a flat text file, 110/etc/termcap; in newer (USG/USL) versions, the database is a hierarchy of 111fast-loading binary description blocks under /usr/lib/terminfo. These binary 112blocks are compiled from an improved editable text representation called 113`terminfo' format (documented in man/terminfo.5). The ncurses library can use 114either /etc/termcap or the compiled binary terminfo blocks, but prefers the 115second form. 116 117In the `misc' directory, there is a text file terminfo.src, in editable 118terminfo format, which can be used to generate the terminfo binaries (that's 119what make install.data does). If the package was built with the 120--enable-termcap option enabled, and the ncurses library cannot find a terminfo 121description for your terminal, it will fall back to the termcap file supplied 122with your system (which the ncurses package installation leaves strictly 123alone). 124 125The utilities are as follows: 126 127 tic -- terminfo source to binary compiler 128 infocmp -- terminfo binary to source decompiler/comparator 129 clear -- emits clear-screen for current terminal 130 tabs -- set tabs on a terminal 131 tput -- shell-script access to terminal capabilities. 132 toe -- table of entries utility 133 tset -- terminal-initialization utility 134 135The first two (tic and infocmp) are used for manipulating terminfo 136descriptions; the next two (clear and tput) are for use in shell scripts. The 137last (tset) is provided for 4.4BSD compatibility. The source code for all of 138these lives in the `progs' directory. 139 140Detailed documentation for all libraries and utilities can be found in the 141`man' and `doc' directories. An HTML introduction to ncurses, panels, and 142menus programming lives in the `doc/html' directory. Manpages in HTML format 143are under `doc/html/man'. 144 145The `test' directory contains programs that can be used to verify or 146demonstrate the functions of the ncurses libraries. See test/README for 147descriptions of these programs. Notably, the `ncurses' utility is designed to 148help you systematically exercise the library functions. 149 150AUTHORS: 151 152Pavel Curtis: 153 wrote the original ncurses 154 155Zeyd M. Ben-Halim: 156 port of original to Linux and many enhancements. 157 158Thomas Dickey (maintainer for 1.9.9g through 4.1, resuming with FSF's 5.0): 159 configuration scripts, porting, mods to adhere to XSI Curses in the 160 areas of background color, terminal modes. Also memory leak testing, 161 the wresize, default colors and key definition extensions and numerous 162 bug fixes -- more than half of those enumerated in NEWS beginning with 163 the internal release 1.8.9, see 164 165 https://invisible-island.net/personal/changelogs.html 166 167Florian La Roche (official maintainer for FSF's ncurses 4.2) 168 Beginning with release 4.2, ncurses is distributed under an MIT-style 169 license. 170 171Eric S. Raymond: 172 the man pages, infocmp(1), tput(1), clear(1), captoinfo(1), tset(1), 173 toe(1), most of tic(1), trace levels, the HTML intro, wgetnstr() and 174 many other entry points, the cursor-movement optimization, the 175 scroll-pack optimizer for vertical motions, the mouse interface and 176 xterm mouse support, and the ncurses test program. 177 178Juergen Pfeifer 179 The menu and form libraries, C++ bindings for ncurses, menus, forms and 180 panels, as well as the Ada95 binding. Ongoing support for panel. 181 182CONTRIBUTORS: 183 184Alexander V. Lukyanov 185 for numerous fixes and improvements to the optimization logic. 186 187David MacKenzie 188 for first-class bug-chasing and methodical testing. 189 190Ross Ridge 191 for the code that hacks termcap parameterized strings into terminfo. 192 193Warren Tucker and Gerhard Fuernkranz, 194 for writing and sending the panel library. 195 196Hellmuth Michaelis, 197 for many patches and testing the optimization code. 198 199Eric Newton, Ulrich Drepper, and Anatoly Ivasyuk: 200 the C++ code. 201 202Jonathan Ross, 203 for lessons in using sed. 204 205Keith Bostic (maintainer of 4.4BSD curses) 206 for help, criticism, comments, bug-finding, and being willing to 207 deep-six BSD curses for this one when it grew up. 208 209Richard Stallman, 210 for his commitment to making ncurses free software. 211 212Countless other people have contributed by reporting bugs, sending fixes, 213suggesting improvements, and generally whining about ncurses :-) 214 215BUGS: 216 See the INSTALL file for bug and developer-list addresses. 217 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines 218 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly. 219