diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'ncurses-5.2/ANNOUNCE')
| -rw-r--r-- | ncurses-5.2/ANNOUNCE | 486 |
1 files changed, 486 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/ncurses-5.2/ANNOUNCE b/ncurses-5.2/ANNOUNCE new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b5f4ef --- /dev/null +++ b/ncurses-5.2/ANNOUNCE @@ -0,0 +1,486 @@ + + Announcing ncurses 5.2 + + The ncurses (new curses) library is a free software emulation of + curses in System V Release 4.0, and more. It uses terminfo format, + supports pads and color and multiple highlights and forms characters + and function-key mapping, and has all the other SYSV-curses + enhancements over BSD curses. + + In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared that he + considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and is encouraging the keepers of + Unix releases such as BSD/OS, freeBSD and netBSD to switch over to + ncurses. + + The ncurses code was developed under GNU/Linux. It should port easily + to any ANSI/POSIX-conforming UNIX. It has even been ported to OS/2 + Warp! + + The distribution includes the library and support utilities, including + a terminfo compiler tic(1), a decompiler infocmp(1), clear(1), + tput(1), tset(1), and a termcap conversion tool captoinfo(1). Full + manual pages are provided for the library and tools. + + The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU + distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses. + It is also available at [2]ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses. + + Release Notes + + This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0 and + 5.1; very few applications will require recompilation, depending on + the platform. These are the highlights from the change-log since + ncurses 5.1 release. + + Interface changes: + * change type of ospeed variable back to short to match its use in + legacy applications. It was altered after ncurses 4.2 to speed_t + to repair a type mismatch which was introduced after 1.9.4 in + 1995. The principal users of termcap continued to use short, which + is not the same size. + NOTE: A few applications will have to be recompiled (about 1% of + the programs in a typical Linux distribution, 10% of the programs + that use ncurses). These are easy to identify with nm or strings. + * remove a private function _nc_can_clear_with(), which was built + with the configure --enable-expanded option but not used. + * add several private functions (prefixed with "_nc_") for tracing + chtype values in the debug library, and for better access and + buffer limit checking. + + New features and improvements: + * rewrote tgoto() to make it better support existing termcap + applications which use hardcoded strings rather than obtain all of + their information from the termcap file. If the string does not + appear to be a terminfo string (i.e., does not refer to a "%p" + parameter, or terminfo-style padding), and termcap support is + configured, tgoto() will interpret it as termcap. Otherwise, as + before, it will use tparm(). + * to ensure that the tgoto() changes work properly, added checks to + tic which report capabilities that do not reference the expected + number of parameters. + * new configure script options: + + option --disable-root-environ adds runtime checks which tell + ncurses to disregard $TERMINFO and similar environment + variables if the current user is root, or running + setuid/setgid. + + option --disable-assumed-color allows you to use the pre-5.1 + convention of default colors used for color-pair 0 to be + configured (see assume_default_colors()). + + implement configure script options that transform installed + program names, e.g., --program-prefix, including the manpage + names and cross references. + + option --with-database allows you to specify a different + terminfo source-file to install. On OS/2 EMX, the default is + misc/emx.src, otherwise misc/terminfo.src + + option --with-default-terminfo-dir allows you to specify the + default terminfo database directory. + + option --with-libtool allows you to build with libtool. + NOTE: libtool uses a different notation for numbering shared + library versions from the existing ncurses configuration. + + option --with-manpage-tbl causes the manpages to be + preprocessed by tbl(1) prior to installation, + + option --without-curses-h causes the installation process to + install curses.h as ncurses.h and make appropriate changes to + headers and manpages. + * modified configure script options: + + change symbol used by the --install-prefix configure option + from INSTALL_PREFIX to DESTDIR (the latter has become common + usage although the name is misleading). + + modify ld -rpath options (e.g., Linux, and Solaris) to use an + absolute pathname for the build tree's lib directory, + avoiding confusion with directories relative to the current + one with the installed programs. + + modified misc/run_tic.in to use tic -o, to eliminate + dependency on $TERMINFO variable for installs. + * terminfo database: + + updated xterm terminfo entries to match XFree86 xterm patch + #146. + + added amiga-vnc, Matrix Orbital, and QNX qansi to + misc/terminfo.src. + + added os2 entry to misc/emx.src. + + add S0 and E0 extensions to screen's terminfo entry since + otherwise the FreeBSD port makes it pass termcap equivalents + to tgoto, which would be misinterpreted by older versions of + ncurses. + * improvements to program usability: + + modify programs to use curses_version() string to report the + version of ncurses with which they are compiled rather than + the NCURSES_VERSION string. The function returns the patch + level in addition to the major and minor version numbers. + + modify tput program so it can be renamed or invoked via a + link as 'reset' or 'init', producing the same effect as + tput reset or tput init. + + add error checking to infocmp's -v and -m options to ensure + that the option value is indeed a number. + * improved performance: + + replace a lookup table in lib_vidattr.c used to decode + no_color_video with a logic expression which is faster. + + Major bug fixes: + * correct manlinks.sed script introduced in ncurses 5.1 to avoid + using ERE "\+", which is not understood by standard versions of + sed. This happens to work with GNU sed, but is not portable, and + was the initial motivation for this release. + * remove "hpux10.*" case from CF_SHARED_OPTS configure script macro. + This differed from the "hpux*" case by using reversed symbolic + links, which made the 5.1 version not match the configuration of + 5.0 shared libraries. + * guard against corrupt terminfo data: + + modify tparm() to disallow arithmetic on strings, analyze the + varargs list to read strings as strings and numbers as + numbers. + + modify tparm()'s internal function spop() to treat a null + pointer as an empty string. + + modify parse_format() in lib_tparm.c to ignore precision if + it is longer than 10000. + + rewrote limit checks in lib_mvcur.c using new functions + _nc_safe_strcat(), etc. Made other related changes to check + lengths used for strcat() and strcpy(). + * corrections to screen optimization: + + added special case in lib_vidattr.c to reset underline and + standout for devices that have no sgr0 defined. + + change handling of non_dest_scroll_region in tty_update.c to + clear text after it is shifted in rather than before shifting + out. Also correct row computation. + + modify rs2 capability in xterm-r6 and similar entries where + cursor save/restore bracketed the sequence for resetting + video attributes. The cursor restore would undo that. + * UTF-8 support: + + when checking LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment + variables for UTF-8 locale, ignore those which are set to an + empty value, as per SUSV2. + + encode 0xFFFD in UTF-8 with 3 bytes, not 2. + + modify _nc_utf8_outch() to avoid sign-extension when checking + for out-of-range value. + * other library fixes: + + added checks for an empty $HOME environment variable, to + avoid retrieving terminfo descriptions from ./.terminfo . + + change functions _nc_parse_entry() and postprocess_termcap() + to avoid using strtok(), because it is non-reentrant. + + initialize fds[] array to 0's in _nc_timed_wait(); apparently + poll() only sets the revents members of that array when there + is activity corresponding to the related file. + + add a check for null pointer in Make_Enum_Type(). + + fix a heap problem with the c++ binding. + + correct missing includes for <string.h> in several places, + including the C++ binding. This is not noted by gcc unless we + use the -fno-builtin option. + * several fixes for tic: + + add a check for empty buffers returned by fgets() in + comp_scan.c next_char() function, in case tic is run on a + non-text file (fixes a core dump). + + modify tic to verify that its inputs are really files, in + case someone tries to read a directory (or /dev/zero). + + correct an uninitialized parameter to open_tempfile() in + tic.c which made "tic -I" give an ambiguous error message + about tmpnam. + + correct logic in adjust_cancels(), which did not check both + alternatives when reclassifying an extended name between + boolean, number and string, causing an infinite loop in tic. + * using new checks in tic for parameter counts in capability + strings, found/fixed several errors both in the terminfo database + and in the include/Caps file. + + modified several terminfo capability strings, including the + definitions for setaf, setab, in include/Caps to indicate + that the entries are parameterized. This information is used + to tell which strings are translated when converting to + termcap. This fixes a problem where the generated termcap + would contain a spurious "%p1" for the terminfo "%p1%d". + + correct parameter counts in include/Caps for dclk as well as + some printer-specific capabilities: csnm, defc, scs, scsd, + smgtp, smglp. + * various fixes for install scripts used to support configure + --srcdir and --with-install-prefix. + * correct several mismatches between manpage filename and ".TH" + directives, renaming dft_fgbg.3x to default_colors.3x and + menu_attribs.3x to menu_attributes.3x. + + Portability: + * configure script: + + newer config.guess, config.sub, including changes to support + OS/2 EMX. The configure script for OS/2 EMX still relies on a + patch since there is no (working) support for that platform + in the main autoconf distribution. + + make configure script checks on variables $GCC and $GXX + consistently compare against 'yes' rather than test if they + are nonnull, since either may be set to the corresponding + name of the C or C++ compiler. + + change configure script to use AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM rather + than AC_CANONICAL_HOST, which means that configure --target + will set a default program-prefix. + + modify the check for big-core to force a couple of memory + accesses, which may work as needed for older/less-capable + machines (if not, there's still the explicit configure + option). + + modify configure test for tcgetattr() to allow for old + implementations, e.g., on BeOS, which only defined it as a + macro. + + add configure check for filesystems (such as OS/2 EMX) which + do not distinguish between upper/lowercase filenames, use + this to fix tags rules in makefiles. + + add MKncurses_def.sh to generate fallback definitions for + ncurses_cfg.h, to quiet gcc -Wundef warnings, modified + ifdef's in code to consistently use "#if" rather than + "#ifdef". + + change most remaining unquoted parameters of test in + configure script to use quotes, for instance fixing a problem + in the --disable-database option. + + modify scripts so that "make install.data" works on OS/2 EMX. + + modify scripts and makefiles so the Ada95 directory builds on + OS/2 EMX. + * library: + + replaced case-statement in _nc_tracebits() for CSIZE with a + table to simplify working around implementations that define + random combinations of the related macros to zero. + + improved OS/2 mouse support by retrying as a 2-button mouse + if code fails to set up a 3-button mouse. + + added private entrypoint _nc_basename(), used to consolidate + related code in progs, as well as accommodating OS/2 EMX + pathnames. + + alter definition of NCURSES_CONST to make it non-empty. + + redefine 'TEXT' in menu.h for AMIGA, since it is reported to + have an (unspecified) symbol conflict. + * programs: + + modified progs/tset.c and tack/sysdep.c to build with sgttyb + interface if neither termio or termios is available. Tested + this with FreeBSD 2.1.5 (which does have termios - but the + sgttyb does work). + + Features of Ncurses + + The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) + curses: + * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are + documented). + * Full support for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, + color, forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic + recognition of keypad and function keys. + * An emulation of the SVr4 panels library, supporting a stack of + windows with backing store, is included. + * An emulation of the SVr4 menus library, supporting a uniform but + flexible interface for menu programming, is included. + * An emulation of the SVr4 form library, supporting data collection + through on-screen forms, is included. + * Binary terminfo entries generated by the ncurses tic(1) + implementation are bit-for-bit-compatible with the entry format + SVr4 curses uses. + * The utilities have options to allow you to filter terminfo entries + for use with less capable curses/terminfo versions such as the + HP/UX and AIX ports. + + The ncurses package also has many useful extensions over SVr4: + * The API is 8-bit clean and base-level conformant with the X/OPEN + curses specification, XSI curses (that is, it implements all BASE + level features, but not all EXTENDED features). Most + EXTENDED-level features not directly concerned with wide-character + support are implemented, including many function calls not + supported under SVr4 curses (but portability of all calls is + documented so you can use the SVr4 subset only). + * Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses can write to the rightmost-bottommost + corner of the screen if your terminal has an insert-character + capability. + * Ada95 and C++ bindings. + * Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and OS/2 + console windows. + * Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm package. + * The function wresize() allows you to resize windows, preserving + their data. + * The function use_default_colors() allows you to use the terminal's + default colors for the default color pair, achieving the effect of + transparent colors. + * The functions keyok() and define_key() allow you to better control + the use of function keys, e.g., disabling the ncurses KEY_MOUSE, + or by defining more than one control sequence to map to a given + key code. + * Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm and XFree86 xterm. + * Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now features a + cursor-local-movement computation more efficient than either BSD's + or System V's. + * Super hardware scrolling support. The screen-update code + incorporates a novel, simple, and cheap algorithm that enables it + to make optimal use of hardware scrolling, line-insertion, and + line-deletion for screen-line movements. This algorithm is more + powerful than the 4.4BSD curses quickch() routine. + * Real support for terminals with the magic-cookie glitch. The + screen-update code will refrain from drawing a highlight if the + magic- cookie unattributed spaces required just before the + beginning and after the end would step on a non-space character. + It will automatically shift highlight boundaries when doing so + would make it possible to draw the highlight without changing the + visual appearance of the screen. + * It is possible to generate the library with a list of pre-loaded + fallback entries linked to it so that it can serve those terminal + types even when no terminfo tree or termcap file is accessible + (this may be useful for support of screen-oriented programs that + must run in single-user mode). + * The tic(1)/captoinfo utility provided with ncurses has the ability + to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and AT&T extension + sets. + * A BSD-like tset(1) utility is provided. + * The ncurses library and utilities will automatically read terminfo + entries from $HOME/.terminfo if it exists, and compile to that + directory if it exists and the user has no write access to the + system directory. This feature makes it easier for users to have + personal terminfo entries without giving up access to the system + terminfo directory. + * You may specify a path of directories to search for compiled + descriptions with the environment variable TERMINFO_DIRS (this + generalizes the feature provided by TERMINFO under stock System + V.) + * In terminfo source files, use capabilities may refer not just to + other entries in the same source file (as in System V) but also to + compiled entries in either the system terminfo directory or the + user's $HOME/.terminfo directory. + * A script (capconvert) is provided to help BSD users transition + from termcap to terminfo. It gathers the information in a TERMCAP + environment variable and/or a ~/.termcap local entries file and + converts it to an equivalent local terminfo tree under + $HOME/.terminfo. + * Automatic fallback to the /etc/termcap file can be compiled in + when it is not possible to build a terminfo tree. This feature is + neither fast nor cheap, you don't want to use it unless you have + to, but it's there. + * The table-of-entries utility toe makes it easy for users to see + exactly what terminal types are available on the system. + * The library meets the XSI requirement that every macro entry point + have a corresponding function which may be linked (and will be + prototype-checked) if the macro definition is disabled with + #undef. + * An HTML "Introduction to Programming with NCURSES" document + provides a narrative introduction to the curses programming + interface. + + State of the Package + + Numerous bugs present in earlier versions have been fixed; the library + is far more reliable than it used to be. Bounds checking in many + `dangerous' entry points has been improved. The code is now type-safe + according to gcc -Wall. The library has been checked for malloc leaks + and arena corruption by the Purify memory-allocation tester. + + The ncurses code has been tested with a wide variety of applications + including (versions starting with those noted): + + cdk + Curses Development Kit + [3]http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html + [4]http://dickey.his.com/cdk. + + ded + directory-editor + [5]http://dickey.his.com/ded. + + dialog + the underlying application used in Slackware's setup, and the + basis for similar applications on GNU/Linux. + [6]http://dickey.his.com/dialog. + + lynx + the character-screen WWW browser + [7]http://lynx.isc.org/release. + + Midnight Commander 4.1 + file manager + [8]www.gnome.org/mc/. + + mutt + mail utility + [9]http://www.mutt.org. + + ncftp + file-transfer utility + [10]http://www.ncftp.com. + + nvi + New vi versions 1.50 are able to use ncurses versions 1.9.7 and + later. + [11]http://www.bostic.com/vi/. + + tin + newsreader, supporting color, MIME + [12]http://www.tin.org. + + taper + tape archive utility + [13]http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/. + + vh-1.6 + Volks-Hypertext browser for the Jargon File + [14]http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html. + + as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone: + + minicom + terminal emulator + [15]http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html. + + vile + vi-like-emacs + [16]http://dickey.his.com/vile. + + The ncurses distribution includes a selection of test programs + (including a few games). + +Who's Who and What's What + + The original developers of ncurses are [17]Zeyd Ben-Halim and [18]Eric + S. Raymond. Ongoing work is being done by [19]Thomas Dickey and + [20]Jürgen Pfeifer. [21]Thomas Dickey acts as the maintainer for the + Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright on ncurses. + Contact the current maintainers at [22]bug-ncurses@gnu.org. + + To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to + bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org containing the line: + subscribe <name>@<host.domain> + + This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the development + and testing of this package. + + Beta versions of ncurses and patches to the current release are made + available at [23]ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses. + +Future Plans + + * Extended-level XPG4 conformance, with internationalization + support. + * Ports to more systems, including DOS and Windows. + + We need people to help with these projects. If you are interested in + working on them, please join the ncurses list. + +Other Related Resources + + The distribution includes and uses a version of the terminfo-format + terminal description file maintained by Eric Raymond. + [24]http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo. + + You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics not + covered in the terminfo file at [25]Richard Shuford's archive. + +References + + 1. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses + 2. ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses + 3. http://www.vexus.ca/CDK.html + 4. http://dickey.his.com/cdk/cdk.html + 5. http://dickey.his.com/ded/ded.html + 6. http://dickey.his.com/dialog/dialog.html + 7. http://lynx.isc.org/release/ + 8. file://localhost/usr/build/ncurses/ncurses-5.2-20001021/doc/html/www.gnome.org/mc/ + 9. http://www.mutt.org/ + 10. http://www.ncftp.com/ + 11. http://www.bostic.com/vi/ + 12. http://www.tin.org/ + 13. http://members.iinet.net.au/~yusuf/taper/ + 14. http://www.bg.debian.org/Packages/unstable/text/vh.html + 15. http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~walker/minicom.html + 16. http://dickey.his.com/vile/vile.html + 17. mailto:zmbenhal@netcom.com + 18. http://www.ccil.org/~esr/home.html + 19. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com + 20. mailto:juergen.pfeifer@gmx.net + 21. mailto:dickey@herndon4.his.com + 22. mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org + 23. ftp://dickey.his.com/ncurses + 24. http://earthspace.net/~esr/terminfo + 25. http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html |