1-- $Id: TO-DO,v 1.39 1998/07/12 00:25:39 tom Exp $ 2 3SHORT-TERM TO-DO ITEMS: 4 5Known Problems: 6 7* GNAT does not put libraries in the correct order, so a build only links 8 properly if you use shared libraries since -lncurses is first. 9 10* XPG4 specifies that the enhanced features are not available unless the 11 _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED test macro is defined by the application. Ncurses uses 12 this macro (incorrectly) to address a dependency upon wchar_t. The functions 13 which use wchar_t are not implemented, so the effect of the test macro is 14 pointless. 15 16* The screen optimization has been tested only in an ad hoc manner. We should 17 develop a good set of regression tests to cover lib_doupdate.c and 18 lib_mvcur.c. 19 20* Magic cookie support does not work, since the logic does not take into account 21 refresh. Also, the initial optimize does not adjust the current location 22 when a cookie is emitted. 23 24* Scrolling optimization has holes: for example, it forces repaints of the 25 screen between calls to refresh(). 26 27* SVr4 uses slightly different rules for determining when softkeys are shown. 28 For example, they are initially displayed (before the ncurses 'e' test 29 activates them), and a touchwin can apparently also force them to be 30 displayed. 31 32+ The code departs from perfect 8-bit cleanness in one respect; you cannot 33 specify a character \200 as part of a capability string, because the terminfo 34 library interprets \200 as a request to embed NUL (\000) at that point. This 35 is a legacy terminfo property we can't mess with. 36 37* The window classes defined in the c++ subdirectory need documentation. 38 Some C++ programmer could earn a lot of good karma by doing this... 39 40Portability (or lack thereof): 41 42* Users of older System V UNIXes (but not Solaris, and probably not SVr4) 43 may trip over a known problem with the signal-handling code which causes 44 abrupt termination of ncurses applications following resume from a ^Z 45 suspend (this problem was first seen running lynx). You will not see 46 this problem if you are running Linux or one of the 4.4BSD derivatives 47 like FreeBSD, NetBSD, or BSDI. For details, see the analysis in the 48 header comment of ncurses/lib_tstp.c. 49 50* In theory, vwprintw and vwscanf are supposed to use the older varargs.h 51 interface for handling variadic argument lists. Linux doesn't have 52 varargs.h, it has the newer X/Open-standard stdargs.h equivalent. So 53 these functions use stdargs instead. This is unlikely to be a problem 54 unless you're building ncurses on a System V old enough to only have 55 varargs.h. (Solaris 2.5.1 uses the stdarg.h binding as well). 56 57* If you're using a BSD earlier than 4.4BSD, or a Linux old enough not to 58 have a native vsscanf(3) in its library, vwscanw() will not work. You lose. 59 (It should work on any System V, however). If you want to fix this, add 60 an implementation to ncurses/vsscanf.c. 61 62* The demo build for the c++ library craps out with many link errors under gcc 63 2.6.3. We're told the C++ support in 2.6.3 is broken and that the right 64 fix is to upgrade to 2.7.0. This demo is also known to not build with 65 the Sun SPARCworks 4.1 C++ compiler, due to a problem resolving templates. 66 67* Under Ultrix, configure craps out (Ultrix sh is lame). Run it under ksh. 68 69* We've not tested the configure script with cross-compilers. The autoconf 70 tests are supposed to be able to support this (please report bugs). You will 71 have to configure and build in two steps. The first step must create the 72 automatically-generated sources (e.g., comp_captab.c) on your host machine. 73 Then, run "make mostlyclean", remove config.* from the top-level directory 74 and configure for the cross-compiler. 75 76+ terminfo.5 does not format with the SunOS (and most other platform's) tbl 77 utility because it relies on a diversion for each table entry. Get the groff 78 package. 79 80Untested features: 81 82* The code for the HP color model using set_color_pair is untested. 83 84* The code for handling soft labels on a terminal type with built-in support 85 for them (num_labels > 0, label_height, label_width, label_format, label_off, 86 label_on, plab_norm, lab_f*) has not been tested. The label_format and 87 lab_f* capabilities aren't presently used. 88 89LONGER-TERM TO-DO ITEMS: 90 911. Extended COSE conformance 92 93There is an XPG4 standard recently released which describes a superset 94of the SVr4 API. The library is BASE conformant with this standard. 95We would like to make ncurses fully conformant at the EXTENDED level 96supporting internationalization. 97 98Here are page references to all material involving wide or multi-byte 99characters in Issue 4 of the XSI Curses standard, with notes on their 100status in this implementation: 101 102 Page 1 (1.1.2) New Features discussion of internationalization. 103 Page 12 (2.4): Definition of cchar_t, wchar_t. 104 Page 16 (3.3.2): Introduction of multi-column characters. 105 Page 17-18 (3.3.5): Description of non-spacing characters. 106 Page 19-21 (3.4.2): Basic character operations. 107 Page 34 (addnstr): These should now call underlying wide- 108character functions, and do (through waddnstr) if _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED is on). 109 Page 35 (addnwstr): wide-character add-string functions. All macros 110except waddnwstr() which is not yet defined. 111 Page 36 (add_wch): wide-character add-char functions. All macros 112except wadd_wch() which is not yet defined. 113 Page 39 (attr_get): implemented -- we've just made the current- 114attributes field of the window an attr_t. 115 Page 43 (bkgrnd): None of these are implemented. 116 Page 45 (border_set): Neither of these is implemented. 117 Page 47 (box_set): box_set implemented as macro, but the underlying 118wborder_set() is not yet defined. 119 Page 78 (echo_wchar): echo_wchar() implemented as macro, underlying 120wecho_wchar() not yet implemented. 121 Page 81 (erasechar): Neither entry point is implemented. 122 Page 87 (getbkgrnd): Not implemented. 123 Page 88 (getcchar): Not implemented. 124 Page 93 (getn_wstr): All implemented (as macros) except the 125underlying wgetn_wstr(). 126 Page 97 (get_wch): All implemented (as macros) except the 127underlying wget_wch(). 128 Page 99 (get_wstr): Xref to page 93. 129 Page 105 (hline_set): All implemented (as macros) except the 130underlying whline_set(), wvline_set(). 131 Page 114 (innstr): Multi-byte character-completeness check is 132not implemented. 133 Page 115 (innwstr): All implemented (as macros) except the 134underlying winnw_str(). 135 Page 119 (insnstr): Implementation may not be correct for multi-byte 136characters. 137 Page 120 (ins_nwstr): Not implemented. 138 Page 121 (insstr): Xref to page 119. 139 Page 122 (instr): Xref to page 119. 140 Page 123 (ins_wch): Not implemented. 141 Page 124 (ins_wstr): Xref to page 120. 142 Page 126 (in_wch): Not implemented. 143 Page 127 (in_wchnstr): Not implemented. 144 Page 128 (inwstr): Xref to page 115. 145 Page 133 (killwchar): killwchar not implemented. 146 Page 158 (pechochar): pecho_wchar() not implemented. 147 Page 176 (setcchar): Not implemented. 148 Page 181 (slk_attroff): slk_wset not implemented. 149 Page 200 (ungetch): unget_wch() not implemented. 150 Page 203 (vidattr): vid_attr() and vid_puts() not implemented. 151 Page 206 (vline_set): Xref to page 105. 152 Page 214 (wunctrl): Not implemented. 153 Page 216 (curses.h): cchar_t, wint_t, wchar_t references. 154 Page 220 (curses.h): KEY_CODE_YES 155 156Basically, the macro superstructure is there but the core is absent. We 157need better multi-locale support guarantees from the OS to finish this. 158If you are working on internationalization support, please contact us so 159we can cooperate. 160 1612. DOS port 162 163Only 16 of the 55 files in the library depend on the terminfo format. 164It should be possible to further kernelize the package, then rewrite 165a small number of core files to produce a functionally-compatible 166port that would do updates to a memory-mapped screen area. The first 167result of this would be a DOS port. 168 1693. X port 170 171It would be nice if ncurses could recognize when it was running under X and 172maintain its own window. With this feature, all ncurses programs would 173automatically become X programs. The challenge is to handle resize events 174properly. 175 1764. Unused capabilities 177 178The currently unused capabilities fall naturally into several groups: 179 180A. Status-line capabilities: 181 182 Booleans: has_status_line, status_line_esc_ok. 183 Numerics: width_status_line. 184 Strings: dis_status_line, from_status_line, to_status_line. 185 186System V Release 1 curses made no use of these at all. SVr4's use, if 187any, is unknown. From the AT&T termcap file it looks like curses, in general, 188shouldn't use them; terminal variants with status lines have their line count 189decremented by 1, suggesting that curses is supposed to leave the status line 190alone. 191 192B. Printer capabilities: 193 194 Boolean: col_addr_glitch, cr_cancels_micro_mode, has_print_wheel, 195 row_addr_glitch, semi_auto_right_margin, cpi_changes_res, 196 lpi_changes_res. 197 Numeric: buffer_capacity, dot_horz_spacing, dot_vert_spacing, 198 max_micro_address, max_micro_jump, micro_col_size, 199 micro_line_size, number_of_pins, output_res_char, 200 output_res_line, output_res_horz_inch, print_rate, 201 wide_char_size, bit_image_entwining, bit_image_type. 202 String: down_half_line, form_feed, up_half_line, set_left_margin, 203 set_right_margin, clear_margins, change_char_pitch 204 ... set_page_length (all the SVr4 printer caps), 205 206Curses doesn't use these. 207 208C. Printer-control capabilities: 209 210 Boolean: prtr_silent. 211 Strings: print_screen, prtr_on, prtr_off, prtr_non. 212 213Curses doesn't use these. 214 215D. Dialer strings: 216 217 Strings: hangup, dial_phone, quick_dial, tone, pulse, flash_hook, 218 fixed_pause, wait_tone. 219 220Curses doesn't use these. 221 222E. Window and virtual-terminal capabilities: 223 224 Numerics: maximum_windows, virtual_terminal. 225 Strings: req_for_input, create_window, goto_window, set_window. 226 227These seem to be fossils from some AT&T experiments on character-based 228window systems that never escaped the lab. The virtual_terminal cap had 229something to do with building terminal emulations into tty line disciplines. 230 231F. Unused VDT capabilities: 232 233 Booleans: erase_overstrike, has_meta_key, insert_null_glitch, 234 move_insert, dest_tabs_magic_smso, transparent_underline, 235 needs_xon_xoff, hard_cursor. 236 Numerics: lines_of_memory, buttons. 237 Strings: pkey_key, pkey_local, pkey_xmit, underline_char, 238 enter_xon_mode, exit_xon_mode, xon_character, xoff_character, 239 display_clock, remove_clock, user[0-5], display_pc_char, 240 enter_scancode_mode, exit_scancode_mode, pc_term_options, 241 scancode_escape, alt_scancode_esc. 242 243These are the potentially important ones for ncurses. Notes: 244 245 i) ncurses doesn't need move_insert; it never uses cup/hpa/vpa while 246 insert_mode is on. 247 248 ii) We probably don't care about dest_tabs_magic_smso; only 249 Telerays used it and they're all long obsolete. 250 251 252