1------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2-- Copyright (c) 1998-2011,2012 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. 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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 81If you configure using the --enable-reentrant option, a "t" is appended to the 82library names (e.g., libncursest.a) and the resulting libraries have a 83different binary interface which makes the ncurses interface more "opaque". 84 85The ncurses libraries implement the curses API. The panel, menu and forms 86libraries implement clones of the SVr4 panel, menu and forms APIs. The source 87code for these lives in the `ncurses', `panel', `menu', and `form' directories 88respectively. 89 90In the `c++' directory, you'll find code that defines an interface to the 91curses, forms, menus and panels library packaged as C++ classes, and a demo program in C++ 92to test it. These class definition modules are not installed by the 'make 93install.libs' rule as libncurses++. 94 95In the `Ada95' directory, you'll find code and documentation for an 96Ada95 binding of the curses API, to be used with the GNAT compiler. 97This binding is built by a normal top-level `make' if configure detects 98an usable version of GNAT (3.11 or above). It is not installed automatically. 99See the Ada95 directory for more build and installation instructions and 100for documentation of the binding. 101 102To do its job, the ncurses code needs your terminal type to be set in the 103environment variable TERM (normally set by your OS; under UNIX, getty(1) 104typically does this, but you can override it in your .profile); and, it needs a 105database of terminal descriptions in which to look up your terminal type's 106capabilities. 107 108In older (V7/BSD) versions of curses, the database was a flat text file, 109/etc/termcap; in newer (USG/USL) versions, the database is a hierarchy of 110fast-loading binary description blocks under /usr/lib/terminfo. These binary 111blocks are compiled from an improved editable text representation called 112`terminfo' format (documented in man/terminfo.5). The ncurses library can use 113either /etc/termcap or the compiled binary terminfo blocks, but prefers the 114second form. 115 116In the `misc' directory, there is a text file terminfo.src, in editable 117terminfo format, which can be used to generate the terminfo binaries (that's 118what make install.data does). If the package was built with the 119--enable-termcap option enabled, and the ncurses library cannot find a terminfo 120description for your terminal, it will fall back to the termcap file supplied 121with your system (which the ncurses package installation leaves strictly 122alone). 123 124The utilities are as follows: 125 126 tic -- terminfo source to binary compiler 127 infocmp -- terminfo binary to source decompiler/comparator 128 clear -- emits clear-screen for current terminal 129 tabs -- set tabs on a terminal 130 tput -- shell-script access to terminal capabilities. 131 toe -- table of entries utility 132 tset -- terminal-initialization utility 133 134The first two (tic and infocmp) are used for manipulating terminfo 135descriptions; the next two (clear and tput) are for use in shell scripts. The 136last (tset) is provided for 4.4BSD compatibility. The source code for all of 137these lives in the `progs' directory. 138 139Detailed documentation for all libraries and utilities can be found in the 140`man' and `doc' directories. An HTML introduction to ncurses, panels, and 141menus programming lives in the `doc/html' directory. Manpages in HTML format 142are under `doc/html/man'. 143 144The `test' directory contains programs that can be used to verify or 145demonstrate the functions of the ncurses libraries. See test/README for 146descriptions of these programs. Notably, the `ncurses' utility is designed to 147help you systematically exercise the library functions. 148 149AUTHORS: 150 151Pavel Curtis: 152 wrote the original ncurses 153 154Zeyd M. Ben-Halim: 155 port of original to Linux and many enhancements. 156 157Thomas Dickey (maintainer for 1.9.9g through 4.1, resuming with FSF's 5.0): 158 configuration scripts, porting, mods to adhere to XSI Curses in the 159 areas of background color, terminal modes. Also memory leak testing, 160 the wresize, default colors and key definition extensions and numerous 161 bug fixes -- more than half of those enumerated in NEWS beginning with 162 the internal release 1.8.9, see 163 164 http://invisible-island.net/personal/changelogs.html 165 166Florian La Roche (official maintainer for FSF's ncurses 4.2) 167 Beginning with release 4.2, ncurses is distributed under an MIT-style 168 license. 169 170Eric S. Raymond: 171 the man pages, infocmp(1), tput(1), clear(1), captoinfo(1), tset(1), 172 toe(1), most of tic(1), trace levels, the HTML intro, wgetnstr() and 173 many other entry points, the cursor-movement optimization, the 174 scroll-pack optimizer for vertical motions, the mouse interface and 175 xterm mouse support, and the ncurses test program. 176 177Juergen Pfeifer 178 The menu and form libraries, C++ bindings for ncurses, menus, forms and 179 panels, as well as the Ada95 binding. Ongoing support for panel. 180 181CONTRIBUTORS: 182 183Alexander V. Lukyanov 184 for numerous fixes and improvements to the optimization logic. 185 186David MacKenzie 187 for first-class bug-chasing and methodical testing. 188 189Ross Ridge 190 for the code that hacks termcap parameterized strings into terminfo. 191 192Warren Tucker and Gerhard Fuernkranz, 193 for writing and sending the panel library. 194 195Hellmuth Michaelis, 196 for many patches and testing the optimization code. 197 198Eric Newton, Ulrich Drepper, and Anatoly Ivasyuk: 199 the C++ code. 200 201Jonathan Ross, 202 for lessons in using sed. 203 204Keith Bostic (maintainer of 4.4BSD curses) 205 for help, criticism, comments, bug-finding, and being willing to 206 deep-six BSD curses for this one when it grew up. 207 208Richard Stallman, 209 for his commitment to making ncurses free software. 210 211Countless other people have contributed by reporting bugs, sending fixes, 212suggesting improvements, and generally whining about ncurses :-) 213 214BUGS: 215 See the INSTALL file for bug and developer-list addresses. 216 The Hacker's Guide in the doc directory includes some guidelines 217 on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly. 218