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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">

<title>Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</title>
 <link rel="author" href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
 "text/html; charset=us-ascii">
 <style type="text/css">
 p,li { max-width:700px; }
 dd { max-width:630px; }
 *.main-name {
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 }
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 font-family: "Andale Mono", "Monotype.com", monospace;
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 font-family: "Andale Mono", "Monotype.com", monospace;
 font-size: 10pt;
 }
 </style>
</head>

<body>
 <h1 class="no-header">Announcing ncurses @VERSION@</h1>

<h2><a name="h2-overview" id="h2-overview">Overview</a></h2>

The ncurses (new curses)
 library is a free software emulation of curses in System V
 Release 4.0 (SVr4), 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 SVr4-curses
 enhancements over BSD curses. SVr4 curses became the basis of
 X/Open Curses.

In mid-June 1995, the maintainer of 4.4BSD curses declared
 that he considered 4.4BSD curses obsolete, and encouraged the
 keepers of unix releases such as
 BSD/OS, FreeBSD and NetBSD to switch over to ncurses.

Since 1995, ncurses has been
 ported to many systems:

<ul>
 <li>It is used in almost every system based on the Linux kernel
 (aside from some embedded applications).</li>

<li>It is used as the system curses library on OpenBSD, FreeBSD
 and MacOS.</li>

<li>It is used in environments such as Cygwin and MinGW. The
 first of these was EMX on OS/2 Warp.</li>

<li>It is used (though usually not as the system
 curses) on all of the vendor unix systems, e.g., AIX, HP-UX, IRIX64, SCO,
 Solaris, Tru64.</li>

<li>It should work readily on any ANSI/POSIX-conforming
 unix.</li>
 </ul>

The distribution includes the library and support utilities,
 including

<ul>
 <li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a>, a termcap conversion
 tool</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/clear.1.html">clear</a>, utility for clearing the
 screen</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/infocmp.1m.html">infocmp</a>, the terminfo decompiler</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tabs.1.html">tabs</a>, set tabs on a terminal</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a>, the terminfo compiler</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/toe.1m.html">toe</a>, list (table of) terminfo
 entries</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tput.1.html">tput</a>, utility for retrieving terminal
 capabilities in shell scripts</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tset.1.html">tset</a>, to initialize the terminal</li>
 </ul>

Full manual pages are provided for the library and tools.

The ncurses distribution is
 available at ncurses' <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/">homepage</a>:

<blockquote>
 <a href=
 "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/</a>
 or 
 <a href=
 "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/</a>&nbsp;.
 </blockquote>

It is also available via anonymous FTP at the GNU distribution
 site

<blockquote>
 <a href=
 "ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/</a>&nbsp;.
 </blockquote>

<h2><a name="h2-release-notes" id="h2-release-notes">Release
 Notes</a></h2>

These notes are for ncurses
 @VERSION@, released February 12, 2020.

This release is designed to be source-compatible with
 ncurses 5.0 through 6.1; providing
 extensions to the application binary interface (ABI). Although
 the source can still be configured to support the ncurses 5 ABI, the reason for the release is
 to reflect improvements to the ncurses 6 ABI and the supporting utility
 programs.

There are, of course, numerous other improvements, listed in
 this announcement.

The most <a href="#h3-bug-fixes">important
 bug-fixes/improvements</a> dealt with user-defined capabilities
 in terminal descriptions. The release notes also mention some
 other bug-fixes, but are focused on new features and improvements
 to existing features since ncurses
 6.1 release.

<h3><a name="h3-library" id="h3-library">Library improvements</a></h3>

<h4><a name="h4-new-library" id="h4-new-library">New features</a></h4>

There are several new features:

<ul>
 <li>
 <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/form_field_opts.3x.html">O_EDGE_INSERT_STAY</a>
 tells the form library to optionally delay cursor movement on
 a field edge/boundary
 </li>

<li>
 <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/form_field_opts.3x.html">O_INPUT_FIELD</a>
 extension to form library allows a dynamic field to shrink if
 the new limit is smaller than the current field size.
 </li>

<li>
 added <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">exit_curses</a> and
 <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_memleaks.3x.html">exit_terminfo</a> to
 replace internal symbols for leak-checking.
 </li>

<li>
 added <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_trace.3x.html#h3-Functions">curses_trace</a>,
 to replace trace().
 </li>
 </ul>

Additionally, to improve performance other changes (and
 extensions) are provided in this release:

<ul>
 <li>
 mouse decoding now handles shift/control/alt logic when
 decoding xterm's 1006 mode
 </li>

<li>
 ncurses now defines a limit for <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_getstr.3x.html">wgetnstr</a>, <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_get_wstr.3x.html">wgetn_wstr</a> when
 length is negative or &ldquo;too large&rdquo;.
 </li>

<li>reordered loop-limit checks in <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_insstr.3x.html">winsnstr</a> in case the
 string has no terminating null and only the number of
 characters is used.</li>

<li>
 there is now no buffer-size limit when reading the
 <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMCAP"><tt>$TERMCAP</tt></a>
 variable.
 </li>

<li>
 the <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMCAP"><tt>$TERMCAP</tt></a>
 variable may be interpreted as a fallback to a terminfo
 entry
 </li>

<li>
 <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Output-Functions"><tt>
 mvcur</tt></a> now decides whether to use hard-tabs, using
 <tt>xt</tt>, <tt>tbc</tt>
 and <tt>hts</tt> as clues.
 </li>

<li>
 extended colors are improved by modifying an internal call
 to <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Output-Functions"><tt>
 vid_puts</tt></a> to pass extended color pairs e.g., from
 <tt>tty_update.c</tt> and <tt>lib_mvcur.c</tt>
 </li>

<li>
 the initialization functions now avoid
 relying upon persistent data for the result from <a href=
 "#getenv-check"><tt>getenv</tt></a>
 </li>

<li>
 scrolling is improved:

<ul>
 <li>a limit check in <tt>newline_forces_scroll</tt> handles
 the case where the row is inside scroll-margins, but not at
 the end.</li>

<li>
 improved loop limits in <tt>_nc_scroll_window</tt>
 handle a case where the scrolled data is a pad which is
 taller than the window.
 </li>
 </ul>
 </li>
 </ul>

<h4><a name="h4-fixes-library" id="h4-fixes-library">Other
 improvements</a></h4>

These are revised features:

<ul>
 <li>
 used &ldquo;<tt>const</tt>&rdquo; in some prototypes
 rather than <tt>NCURSES_CONST</tt> where X/Open Curses was
 updated to do this, e.g., <tt>wscanw</tt>, <tt>newterm</tt>,
 the terminfo interface. Also use &ldquo;<tt>const</tt>&rdquo;
 for consistency in the termcap interface, which was withdrawn
 by X/Open Curses in Issue 5 (2007). As of Issue 7, X/Open
 Curses still lacks &ldquo;<tt>const</tt>&rdquo; for certain
 return values, e.g., <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_util.3x.html#h3-keyname_key_name">keyname</a>.
 </li>

<li>
 modified <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_bkgd.3x.html#h3-bkgd"><tt>wbkgd</tt></a>
 and <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_bkgrnd.3x.html#h3-bkgrnd"><tt>wbkgrnd</tt></a>
 to improve compatibility with SVr4 curses, changing the way
 the window rendition is updated when the background character
 is modified
 </li>

<li>
 improved terminfo write/read by modifying the fourth item
 of the extended header to denote the number of valid strings
 in the extended string table (see <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/term.5.html#h3-EXTENDED-STORAGE-FORMAT">term(5)</a>).
 </li>

<li>
 modified the initialization checks for mouse so that the
 <a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sm_1006"><tt>xterm+sm+1006</tt></a>
 block will work with terminal descriptions not mentioning
 xterm.
 </li>
 </ul>

These were done to limit or ultimately deprecate features:

<ul>
 <li>
 deprecated <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/NEWS.html#t970831">safe-sprintf</a>, since the
 <tt>vsnprintf</tt> function, which does what was needed, was
 standardized long ago.
 </li>

<li>
 marked <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_printw.3x.html#h3-PORTABILITY"><tt>vwprintw</tt></a>
 and <tt>vwscanw</tt> as deprecated; recommend using <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_printw.3x.html"><tt>vw_printw</tt></a>
 and <tt>vw_scanw</tt>, respectively.
 </li>

<li>
 added deprecation warnings for internal functions called
 by older versions of <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/tack.html">tack</a>.
 </li>

<li>
 removed unused <tt>_nc_import_termtype2</tt> function.
 </li>
 </ul>

These are improvements to existing features:

<ul>
 <li>
 check parameter of <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_threads.3x.html">set_escdelay</a>,
 return ERR if negative.
 </li>

<li>
 check parameter of <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_threads.3x.html">set_tabsize</a>, return
 ERR if not greater than zero
 </li>

<li>
 correct a status-check in _nc_read_tic_entry() so that if
 reading a hex/b64 <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMINFO"><tt>$TERMINFO</tt></a>,
 and the <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERM"><tt>$TERM</tt></a>
 does not match, fall-through to the compiled-in search
 list.
 </li>

<li>
 amend check for <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/terminfo.5.html#h3-Predefined-Capabilities"><tt>
 repeat_char</tt></a> to handle a case where setlocale() was
 called after <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_initscr.3x.html"><tt>initscr</tt></a>
 </li>

<li>
 move macro for <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_touch.3x.html"><tt>is_linetouched</tt></a>
 inside <tt>NCURSES_NOMACROS</tt>
 <tt>ifndef</tt>.
 </li>

<li>
 use <tt>_nc_copy_termtype2</tt> rather than direct
 assignment in <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html#h3-Initialization">setupterm</a>,
 in case it is called repeatedly using fallback terminfo
 descriptions
 </li>

<li>
 improve workaround for Solaris wcwidth versus line-drawing
 characters
 </li>

<li>
 add checks in <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/resizeterm.3x.html"><tt>repair_subwindows</tt></a>
 to keep the current position and scroll-margins inside the
 resized subwindow.
 </li>

<li>
 correct a buffer-limit in <tt>write_entry.c</tt> for
 systems that use caseless filenames.
 </li>

<li>
 improved build-time utility report_offsets:

<ul>
 <li>
 add categories, e.g., "w" for wide-character, "t" for
 threads to make the report more readable. Reorganized the
 structures reported to make the categories more
 apparent.
 </li>

<li>
 add <tt>NCURSES_GLOBALS</tt> and
 <tt>NCURSES_PRESCREEN</tt> to report to show how similar
 the different libtinfo configurations are.
 </li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 modified some header files to ensure that those include
 necessary files except for the previously-documented
 cases
 </li>

<li>
 added some traces in initialization to show whether a
 fallback entry is used.
 </li>

<li>
 made minor optimization to reduce calls to
 _nc_reserve_pairs
 </li>
 </ul>

These are corrections to existing features:

<ul>
 <li>
 fix a special case in <tt>PutAttrChar</tt> where a cell is
 marked as alternate-character set, but the terminal does not
 actually support the given graphic character. This would
 happen in an older terminal such as vt52, which
 lacks most line-drawing capability.
 </li>

<li>
 corrected flag for "seq" method of db 1.8.5 interface,
 needed by toe on some of the BSDs.
 </li>

<li>
 modify comparison in make_hash.c to correct a special case
 in collision handling for Caps-hpux11
 </li>

<li>
 add extended_slk_color{,_sp} symbols to the appropriate
 package/*.{map,sym} files
 </li>

<li>
 modify lib_setup to avoid calling pthread_self() without
 first verifying that the address is valid, i.e., for weak
 symbols
 </li>

<li>
 add a couple of broken-linker symbols to the list of
 versioned symbols to help with link-time optimization versus
 weak symbols.
 </li>
 </ul>

<h3><a name="h3-programs" id="h3-programs">Program
 improvements</a></h3>

Several improvements were made to the utility programs:

<dl>
 <dt>clear
 </dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>improved logic for clearing with the E3
 extension, in case the terminal scrolls content onto its
 saved-lines before actually clearing the display, by
 clearing the saved-lines after clearing the display</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dt>infocmp
 </dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>omit filtering of &ldquo;<tt>OTxx</tt>&rdquo; names
 which are used for obsolete capabilities, when the output
 is sorted by long-names. This change helps when making a
 table of the short/long capability names.</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>added check for consistent alternate character set
 capabilities.</li>

<li>added check for paired <tt>indn</tt>/<tt>rin</tt>.</li>

<li>added check for terminals with <tt>parm_dch</tt> vs
 <tt>parm_ich</tt>.</li>

<li>added check for the case where
 <tt>setf</tt>/<tt>setb</tt> are given using different
 strings, but provide identical results to
 <tt>setaf</tt>/<tt>setab</tt>.</li>

<li>corrected check for <tt>ich1</tt>.</li>

<li>changed a too-large terminal entry from a fatal error
 to a warning.</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>ignores any hex/b64 <tt>$TERMINFO</tt> value in the
 list of terminfo databases.</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>replace check in reset
 command for obsolete &ldquo;<tt>pt</tt>&rdquo; capability
 using <tt>tbc</tt> and <tt>hts</tt> capabilities as
 clues</li>

<li>modify reset to allow
 for tabstops at intervals other than 8.</li>

<li>change reset's behavior
 for margins to simply clear soft-margins if possible,
 rather than clearing and then setting them according to the
 terminal's width.</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>add &ldquo;<tt>x</tt>&rdquo; to <tt>getopt</tt> string
 so that &ldquo;<tt>tput&nbsp;-x&nbsp;clear</tt>&rdquo;
 works.</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>
 </dl>

Several changes were made to the generated ncurses*config
 scripts and the analogous &ldquo;<tt>.pc</tt>&rdquo; files to
 reduce differences between the configurations they report:

<ul>
 <li>
 modified the ncurse*-config and pc-files to more closely
 match for the <tt>-I</tt> and <tt>-l</tt> options.
 </li>

<li>
 filtered out linker-specs from the <tt>--libs</tt>
 report.
 </li>

<li>
 amended the ncurses*-config and pc-files to take into
 account the rpath hack which differed between those
 files.
 </li>

<li>
 modified generated ncurses*config and ncurses.pc,
 ncursesw.pc, etc., to list helper libraries such as gpm for
 static linking.
 </li>
 </ul>

<h4><a name="h4-examples" id="h4-examples">Examples</a></h4>

Along with the library and utilities, improvements were made
 to the <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>. Most of
 this activity aimed at improving the test-packages. A few changes
 are more generally useful, e.g., for the main ncurses
 test-program, and for analyzing traces using the
 tracemunch script:

<ul>
 <li>
 improve recovery from error when reading command-character
 in <tt>test/ncurses.c</tt>, showing the relevant error
 message and not exiting on EINTR.
 </li>

<li>
 improve tracemunch, by keeping track of
 <tt>TERMINAL*</tt> values, and if tracing was first turned on
 after initialization, attempt to show distinct screen, window
 and terminal names anyway.
 </li>

<li>
 modify tracemunch to accept filename parameters
 in addition to use as a pipe/filter.
 </li>

<li>
 update tracemunch to work with perl
 5.26.2, which changed the rules for escaping regular
 expressions.
 </li>

<li>
 add some checks in tracemunch for undefined
 variables.
 </li>

<li>
 modify <tt>TurnOn</tt>/<tt>TurnOff</tt> macros (in
 lib_vidattr.c and lib_vid_attr.c) to avoid expansion of
 &ldquo;<tt>CUR</tt>&rdquo; in trace.
 </li>
 </ul>

There are other new demo/test programs and reusable
 examples:

<dl>
 <dt>color_content
 </dt>

<dd>Demonstrate the <tt>color_content</tt> and
 <tt>extended_color_content</tt> functions.</dd>

<dd>A simple demo of tabs in curses.</dd>

<dt>dump_window
 </dt>

<dd>A portable curses screen-dump, used to compare ncurses
 screen contents with Solaris.</dd>

<dt>pair_content
 </dt>

<dd>Demonstrate the <tt>pair_content</tt> and
 <tt>extended_pair_content</tt> functions.</dd>

<dt>report_hashing
 </dt>

<dd>Check hash-tables used for terminfo and termcap names.</dd>

<dt>parse_rgb
 </dt>

<dd>Sample implementation of the ncurses RGB extension from
 <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/user_caps.5.html">user_caps.5</a>, used
 in picsmap and savescreen programs.</dd>
 </dl>

A variety of improvements were made to existing programs, both
 new features as well as options added to make the set of programs
 more consistent.

<ul>
 <li>
 add &ldquo;<tt>-l</tt>&rdquo; option to test/background,
 to dump screen contents in a form that lets different curses
 implementations be compared.
 </li>

<li>
 add &ldquo;<tt>@</tt>&rdquo; command to test/ncurses
 F-test, to allow rapid jump to different character pages.
 </li>

<li>
 added enum, regex examples to test/demo_forms
 </li>

<li>
 amend Scaled256() macro in test/picsmap.c to cover the
 full range 0..1000
 </li>

<li>
 corrected pathname used in Ada95 sample programs for
 <tt>explain.txt</tt>, to work with test-packages, and used an
 awk script to split the resulting pathname when it would be
 too long for a single line.
 </li>

<li>
 ignore interrupted system-call in test/ncurses's
 command-line, e.g., if the terminal were resized.
 </li>

<li>
 improved ifdef's for <tt>TABSIZE</tt> variable, to help
 with AIX/HPUX ports.
 </li>
 </ul>

<h3><a name="h3-database" id="h3-database">Terminal database</a></h3>

There are several new terminal descriptions:

<blockquote style="word-break:keep-all">
 <tt>alacritty</tt>, <tt>domterm</tt>, <tt>kitty</tt>,
 <tt>mintty</tt>, <tt>mintty-direct</tt>, <tt>ms-terminal</tt>,
 <tt>n7900</tt>, <tt>nsterm-build309</tt>,
 <tt>nsterm-direct</tt>, <tt>screen5</tt>, <tt>ti703</tt>,
 <tt>ti707</tt>, <tt>ti703-w</tt>, <tt>ti707-w</tt>
 <tt>vscode</tt>, <tt>vscode-direct</tt>, <tt>xterm-mono</tt>,
 <tt>xterm.js</tt>
 </blockquote>

There are many changes to existing terminal descriptions. Some
 were updates to several descriptions:

<ul>
 <li>use <a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-ansi_rep"><tt>ansi+rep</tt></a>
 in a dozen places</li>

<li>add rs1 to konsole, mlterm</li>

<li>improve several flash capabilities with trailing mandatory
 delays</li>

<li>drop <tt>ich1</tt> from <tt>rxvt-basic</tt>, <tt>Eterm</tt>
 and <tt>mlterm</tt> to improve compatibility with old
 non-curses programs</li>

<li>add/use <a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_keypad"><tt>xterm+keypad</tt></a>
 in <tt>xterm-new</tt></li>

<li>use <a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sl-twm"><tt>xterm+sl-twm</tt></a>
 for consistency, nine places</li>

<li>improve xm example in <a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_x11mouse">xterm+x11mouse</a>
 and <a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sm_1006">xterm+sm_1006</a>.</li>
 </ul>

while others affected specific descriptions. These were
 retested, to take into account changes by their developers:

<blockquote>
 <tt>terminator</tt>, <tt>st</tt>
 </blockquote>

while these are specific fixes based on reviewing
 documentation, user reports, or warnings from tic:

<dt><a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-gnome-256color">gnome-256color</a>
 </dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>base entry on "gnome", not "vte", for consistency</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dt><a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-interix">interix</a>
 </dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>trim unnecessary setf/setb</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dt><a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-linux-16color">linux-16color</a>
 </dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>accommodate <a href=
 "https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2019-10/msg00061.html">
 Linux console driver</a> incompatibility introduced in
 early 2018</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dt><a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-nsterm-256color">nsterm-256color</a>:</dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>add nsterm-build309 to replace nsterm-256color,
 assigning the latter as an alias of nsterm, to make mouse
 work with nsterm-256color</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dt><a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-regent40">regent40</a>:</dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>renumber function-keys to match manual</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dt><a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-regent60">regent60</a>:</dt>

<li>corrected acsc</li>

<li>add shifted function-keys</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>added function-key definitions to agree with Televideo
 950 manual</li>

<li>corrected acsc</li>

<li>remove bogus kf0</li>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>add acsc string, including right/down-arrow</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>corrected acsc</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>add shifted function-keys as kF1 to kF16</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>

<dt><a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_x11hilite">xterm+x11hilite</a>:</dt>

<dd>
 <ul>
 <li>eliminate unused p5 parameter.</li>
 </ul>
 </dd>
 </dl>

A few entries use extensions (user-defined terminal
 capabilities):

<ul>
 <li>use <a href=
 "/ncurses/terminfo.src.html#tic-xterm_sm_1006"><tt>xterm+sm+1006</tt></a>
 (aka &ldquo;SGR 1006 mouse&rdquo;) for konsole-base and
 putty</li>

<li>add <tt>Smol/Rmol</tt> user-defined capability to
 <tt>tmux</tt> and <tt>vte-2018</tt></li>

<li>add <tt>Smulx</tt> user-defined capability to
 <tt>tmux</tt>, <tt>vte-2018</tt></li>
 </ul>

<h3><a name="h3-documentation" id=
 "h3-documentation">Documentation</a></h3>

As usual, this release

<ul>
 <li>
 improves documentation by describing new features,
 </li>

<li>
 attempts to improve the description of features which
 users have found confusing
 </li>

<li>
 fills in overlooked descriptions of features which were
 described in the <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/NEWS.html">NEWS</a> file
 but treated sketchily in manual pages.
 </li>
 </ul>

In addition to providing background information to explain
 these features and show how they evolved, there are corrections,
 clarifications, etc.:

<ul>
 <li>
 Corrections:

<ul>
 <li>correct error-returns listed in manual pages for a few
 form functions</li>

<li>corrected prototypes in several manpages using script
 to extract those in compilable form.</li>

<li>fix typo in <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/term.5.html#h3-EXTENDED-NUMBER-FORMAT">term.5</a>,
 improve explanation of format</li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 Clarify in manual pages that <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_printw.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">vwprintw</a>
 and <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_scanw.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">vwscanw</a>
 are obsolete. 
 They have not been part of X/Open Curses since 2007.
 </li>

<li>
 New/improved history and portability sections:

<ul>
 <li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_addch.3x.html#h3-ACS-Symbols">curs_addch.3x</a>
 gives some background for ACS symbols.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_getcchar.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">curs_getcchar.3x</a>
 explains a difference between ncurses and X/Open
 Curses.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_getstr.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">curs_getstr.3x</a>
 gives historical/portability background for the length
 parameter of <tt>wgetnstr</tt>.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_slk.3x.html">curs_slk.3x</a> lists a
 few differences between SVr4 curses and X/Open Curses for
 soft-keys.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo.3x</a>
 explains that the initial implementation of terminfo in
 SVr2 was mostly replaced by other developers in SVr3.</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/infocmp.1m.html">infocmp.1</a>
 explains that the initial version of terminfo had no tool
 for decompiling descriptions. That came later, with SVr3,
 with a different developer.</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tabs.1">tabs.1</a> tells more
 than you wanted to know about the tool.</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tic.1m.html">tic.1</a> explains
 that the initial version of terminfo had a rudimentary tool
 (based on termcap) for compiling entries. The tool used
 with Unix was developed by others for SVr3.</li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/toe.1m.html">toe.1</a> explains
 the origin of this tool.</li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 Improvements for <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/user_caps.5.html">user_caps.5</a>:

<ul>
 <li>mention <tt>meml</tt>, <tt>memu</tt> and
 <tt>box1</tt></li>

<li>expanded description of <tt>XM</tt></li>

<li>add a clarification regarding the <tt>RGB</tt>
 capability.</li>

<li>mention user_caps.5 in the tic and infocmp manual
 pages.</li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 Other improvements:

<ul>
 <li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_add_wch.3x.html#h3-Line-Graphics">curs_add_wch.3x</a>
 adds note about Unicode terminology for the line-drawing
 characters.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_color.3x.html#h3-RETURN-VALUE">curs_color.3x</a>
 improves discussion of error returns and extensions.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_mouse.3x.html">curs_mouse.3x</a>
 explains how the <tt>kmous</tt> and <tt>XM</tt>
 capabilities are used for xterm-mouse input.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_refresh.3x.html#h3-wnoutrefresh_doupdate">
 curs_refresh.3x</a> improves documentation regarding the
 virtual and physical screens.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_util.3x.html">curs_util.3x</a>
 mentions a difference between SVr4 and X/Open Curses for
 <tt>unctrl.h</tt></li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/curs_variables.3x.html#h2-PORTABILITY">curs_variables.3x</a>
 improves description of the init_tabs capability
 and <tt>TABSIZE</tt> variable.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/ncurses.3x.html#h2-ALTERNATE-CONFIGURATIONS">
 ncurses.3x</a> improves documentation regarding
 feature-test macros in curses.h</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/resizeterm.3x.html#h3-resize_term">resizeterm.3x</a>
 about top-level windows which touch the screen's
 borders.</li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/tput.1.html#h3-Terminal-Size">tput.1</a>
 clarifies how tput determines the terminal
 size.</li>
 </ul>
 </li>
 </ul>

There are no new manual pages (all of the manual page updates
 are to existing pages).

Some of the improvements are more subtle, relating to the way
 the information is presented. For instance, the generated
 terminfo.5 file uses a different table layout, allowing it to use
 space on wide terminals more effectively.

<h3><a name="h3-bug-fixes" id="h3-bug-fixes">Interesting
 bug-fixes</a></h3>

While there were many bugs fixed during development of ncurses
 6.2, only a few (the reason for this release) were both important
 and interesting. Most of the bug-fixes were for local issues
 which did not affect compatibility across releases. Since those
 are detailed in the NEWS file no elaboration is needed here.

The interesting bugs were in tic/infocmp's handling of
 user-defined capabilities. These were not recent bugs. Initially
 it was a simple problem:

<ul>
 <li>The user-defined capabilities can be any type (boolean,
 number or string), but once given a type all uses of the name
 must conform to that type&mdash;unless some special support for
 a particular multi-typed name is built into ncurses.</li>

<li>
 One of simpleterm's contributors copied some definitions
 for using tmux's user-defined capabilities in
 <a href=
 "https://git.suckless.org/st/commit/06f8cf8ca87a81db15816658c40b2afcd1ad5332.html">
 late in 2016</a>.

<blockquote>
 <pre class="demo-name">
diff --git a/st.info b/st.info
@@ -185,7 +185,10 @@ st| simpleterm,
 tsl=\E]0;,
 xenl,
 vpa=\E[%i%p1%dd,
-
+# Tmux unofficial extensions, see TERMINFO EXTENSIONS in tmux(1)
+ Se,
+ Ss,
+ Tc,
 
 st-256color| simpleterm with 256 colors,
 use=st,
</pre>
 </blockquote>
 </li>

<li>
 Later, in (referring to a version from <a href=
 "https://git.suckless.org/st/commit/c0882f2ed1d7a2dd0fa2efa52157e6fc6fde3652.html">
 mid-2017</a>), a user asked to have it updated in
 ncurses.
 </li>

<li>
 However, it had an error from the change in late 2016. The
 terminal description made what tmux expected to be
 string actually a
 boolean.

Over the years, there were problems with each of
 simpleterm's terminal descriptions. I repaired those, and
 usually dealt with the problem.
 </li>

<li>
 The difference in this case was that when compiling the
 terminal database, tic may have in memory the
 definitions for more than one terminal description (so that
 it can resolve &ldquo;<tt>use=</tt>&rdquo; clauses). Seeing
 two different types for the same name, in certain situations
 it would incorrectly merge the symbol tables for the two
 terminal descriptions.
 </li>

<li>
 On simpleterm's side, their bug was finally fixed in
 <a href=
 "https://git.suckless.org/st/commit/83866428de031300eab03fbb116bcf7d2b1d4f60.html">
 late 2019</a>, three years after the bug was created.
 </li>
 </ul>

For ncurses, the elapsed time to fix this bug was less than
 three years. Someone reported a problem with the terminal
 description a few weeks after releasing ncurses 6.1 (in <a href=
 "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/issues/1264">tmux #1264</a>), and
 the terminal description was updated that week (ncurses patch
 <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/NEWS.html#t20180224">20180224</a>):

<blockquote>
 <pre class="demo-name">
20180224
 + modify _nc_resolve_uses2() to detect incompatible types when merging
 a "use=" clause of extended capabilities. The problem was seen in a
 defective terminfo integrated from simpleterm sources in 20171111,
 compounded by repair in 20180121.
 + correct Ss/Ms interchange in st-0.7 entry (tmux #1264) -TD
</pre>
 </blockquote>

The larger part of that change added a check to prevent a
 simple merge of terminal descriptions where the same user-defined
 name was used with different types. But it raised some
 questions:

<ul>
 <li>
 Was there a reliable way to manage terminal descriptions
 which used the same extended name in different ways?
 </li>

<li>
 Should ncurses provide a registry of well-known extended
 names, with their types?
 </li>
 </ul>

Since the correction to <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses.html#download_database"><tt>terminfo.src</tt></a>
 could have been readily adopted by packagers, there was nothing
 more to be done from ncurses' standpoint on that part. But
 improving ncurses to prevent issues like that is the reason for
 making a release.

Nothing more (constructive) was mentioned with regard to
 simpleterm. But a few problems were found in the handling of
 user-defined capabilities:

<ul>
 <li>
 Forward-references to user-defined capabilities in a
 &ldquo;<tt>use=</tt>&rdquo; clause did not allocate new data
 for each use. In tic, successive compilation of
 terminal entries could add user-defined capabilities to the
 wrong terminal entry.

This was not noticed before, since xterm's terminal
 descriptions were the main users of the feature, and almost
 all of the uses of the building-blocks which contained
 user-defined capabilities were backward-references.
 </li>

<li>
 There is one (documented) case where ncurses 6.1 supports
 a user-defined capability that could be any type (i.e.,
 &ldquo;RGB&rdquo;). The check added in February 2018 to guard
 against mismatches did not handle all of the combinations
 needed.
 </li>
 </ul>

Both of these issues dated from the original implementation of
 user-defined capabilities. Fixing them does not change the
 terminal database, but a older tic without the fixes
 will not be able to handle terminfo sources which rely upon those
 fixes. Starting in June 2019, the download link for the terminfo
 source file was capped at that date. The development sources have
 an up-to-date copy of the file, for people with a legitimate need
 for it.

The &ldquo;<tt>-c</tt>&rdquo; (check) option of tic
 is not very useful if it cannot offer advice on parameters needed
 for user-defined capabilities. The various Caps files
 were reorganized to reduce redundancy, and in the common portion
 (<a href=
 "https://github.com/ThomasDickey/ncurses-snapshots/blob/master/include/Caps-ncurses">Caps-ncurses</a>),
 a registry of user-defined capabilities is provided for use by
 tic. While users can still define their own custom
 capabilities, tic will not offer any advice when their
 parameters do not match.

In ncurses 6.2, tic makes a special check to allow
 any type for RGB, but its being able to do this relies
 upon fixes made in the ncurses library in mid-2019.

<h3><a name="h3-config-config" id=
 "h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a></h3>

<h4><a name="h4-config-major" id="h4-config-major">Major
 changes</a></h4>

There are no major changes. Several new options were added to
 ease integration of packages with systems using different
 versions of GNAT and ncurses. Also,
 improvements were made to configure checks.

<h4><a name="h4-config-options" id=
 "h4-config-options">Configuration options</a></h4>

There are a few new/modified configure options:

<dl>
 <dt><tt>--with-config-suffix</tt>
 </dt>

<dd>
 helps work around a filename conflict with Debian packages
 versus test-packages.
 </dd>

<dt><tt>--with-ada-libname</tt>
 </dt>

<dd>
 allows one to rename the &ldquo;AdaCurses&rdquo; library
 (at least one packager prefers a lowercase name).
 </dd>

<dt><tt>--with-fallbacks</tt>
 </dt>

<dd>
 now ensures there is a value, and adds the fallback
 information to top-level Makefile summary.
 </dd>

<dd>
 check for pcre-posix library to help with MinGW port.
 </dd>

<dt><tt>--with-infocmp-path</tt>
 </dt>

<dd>
 help work around problems building fallback source using
 pre-6.0 tic/infocmp.
 </dd>

<dt><tt>--with-versioned-syms</tt>
 </dt>

<dd>
 option value can now be a relative pathname.
 </dd>
 </dl>

<h3><a name="h3-portability" id="h3-portability">Portability</a></h3>

Many of the portability changes are implemented via the
 configure script:

<ul>
 <li>
 ignore <a href=
 "/ncurses/man/ncurses.3x.html#h3-TERMINFO"><tt>$TERMINFO</tt></a>
 as a default value in configure script if it came from the
 <tt>infocmp</tt> <tt>-Q</tt> option.
 </li>

<li>
 distinguish gcc from icc and clang when the
 <tt>--enable-warnings</tt> option is not used, to avoid
 unnecessary warnings about unrecognized inline options
 </li>

<li>
 consistently prepend new libraries as they are found
 during configuration, rather than relying upon the linker to
 resolve order dependencies of libraries.
 </li>

<li>
 modified configure scripts to reduce relinking/ranlib
 during library install :

<ul>
 <li>use &ldquo;<tt>install -p</tt>&rdquo; when available,
 to avoid need for ranlib of static libraries.</li>

<li>scripts which use
 &ldquo;<tt>--disable-relink</tt>;&rdquo; add a 1-second
 sleep to work around tools which use whole-second
 timestamps, e.g., in <tt>utime</tt> rather than the actual
 file system resolution.</li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 add configure check for <a href=
 "#getenv-fixes"><tt>getenv</tt></a> to work around
 implementation shown in Emscripten which overwrites the
 previous return value on each call.

Use that to optionally suppress <tt>START_TRACE</tt>
 macro, whose call to <tt>getenv</tt> may not work
 properly
 </li>

<li>
 change target configure level for <tt>_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt>
 to 600 to address use of <tt>vsscanf</tt> and
 <tt>setenv</tt>.
 </li>

<li>
 reduce use of <tt>_GNU_SOURCE</tt> for current glibc where
 <tt>_DEFAULT_SOURCE</tt> combines with
 <tt>_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt>

Allow for Cygwin's newlib when checking for the
 _DEFAULT_SOURCE symbol.

MidnightBSD is now checked for the
 <tt>_XOPEN_SOURCE</tt>-related definitions.
 </li>

<li>
 If the check for <tt>va_copy</tt> or <tt>__va_copy</tt>
 fails,

<ul>
 <li>configure now tries copying the pointers for
 <tt>va_list</tt>, or as an array.</li>

<li>alternatively, it checks for
 <tt>__builtin_va_copy</tt>(), which could be used with AIX
 <tt>xlc</tt> in c89 mode.</li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 several changes to support a port to Ultrix 3.1:

<ul>
 <li>check if "b" binary feature of fopen works</li>

<li>check for missing feature of locale.h</li>

<li>add fallback for strstr() in test-programs</li>

<li>add fallback for STDOUT_FILENO in test-programs</li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 The test/configure script (used for <a href=
 "/ncurses/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>)
 is improved:

<ul>
 <li>work around non-ncurses termcap.h file, e.g., in
 Slackware.</li>

<li>check for <a href=
 "/ncurses/man/curs_variables.3x.html#h3-TABSIZE"><tt>TABSIZE</tt></a>
 variable.</li>

<li>checks for the X11/Intrinsic.h header, accommodate
 recent MacOS changes which largely emptied
 <tt>/usr/include</tt>.</li>
 </ul>
 </li>
 </ul>

Here are some of the other portability fixes:

<ul>
 <li>
 added dummy "check" rule in top-level and test-Makefile to
 simplify building test-packages for ArchLinux.
 </li>

<li>
 dropped library-dependency on psapi for MinGW port, since
 win_driver.c defines <tt>PSAPI_VERSION</tt> to 2, making it
 use <tt>GetProcessImageFileName</tt> from kernel32.dll
 </li>

<li>
 made build-fixes for configuration using --program-suffix
 with Ada95, noticed with MacOS but applicable to other
 platforms without libpanelw, etc.
 </li>

<li>
 modified ncurses/Makefile.in to fix a case where
 Debian/testing changes to the ld --as-needed configuration
 broke ncurses-examples test packages.
 </li>

<li>
 used <tt>_WIN32</tt>/<tt>_WIN64</tt> in preference to
 <tt>__MINGW32__</tt>/<tt>__MINGW64__</tt> symbols to simplify
 building with Microsoft Visual C++, since the former are
 defined in both compiler configurations.
 </li>
 </ul>

<hr>

<h2><a name="h2-features" id="h2-features">Features of
 ncurses</a></h2>

The ncurses package is fully
 upward-compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4) curses:

<ul>
 <li>
 All of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
 documented).
 </li>

<li>
 ncurses supports all of the
 for SVr4 curses features including keyboard mapping, color,
 forms-drawing with ACS characters, and automatic recognition
 of keypad and function keys.
 </li>

<li>
 ncurses provides these SVr4
 add-on libraries (not part of X/Open Curses):

<ul>
 <li>
 the panels library, supporting a stack of windows with
 backing store.
 </li>

<li>
 the menus library, supporting a uniform but flexible
 interface for menu programming.
 </li>

<li>
 the form library, supporting data collection through
 on-screen forms.
 </li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 ncurses's terminal database
 is fully compatible with that used by SVr4 curses.

<ul>
 <li>
 ncurses supports
 user-defined capabilities which it can see, but which are
 hidden from SVr4 curses applications using the
 same terminal database.
 </li>

<li>
 It can be optionally configured to match the format
 used in related systems such as AIX and Tru64.
 </li>

<li>
 Alternatively, ncurses
 can be configured to use hashed databases rather than the
 directory of files used by SVr4 curses.
 </li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 The ncurses 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.
 </li>
 </ul>

The ncurses package also has
 many useful extensions over SVr4:

<ul>
 <li>
 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, and most EXTENDED
 features). It includes many function calls not supported
 under SVr4 curses (but portability of all calls is documented
 so you can use the SVr4 subset only).
 </li>

<li>
 Unlike SVr3 curses, ncurses
 can write to the rightmost-bottommost corner of the screen if
 your terminal has an insert-character capability.
 </li>

<li>
 Ada95 and C++ bindings.
 </li>

<li>
 Support for mouse event reporting with X Window xterm and
 FreeBSD and OS/2 console windows.
 </li>

<li>
 Extended mouse support via Alessandro Rubini's gpm
 package.
 </li>

<li>
 The function <code>wresize</code> allows you to resize
 windows, preserving their data.
 </li>

<li>
 The function <code>use_default_colors</code> allows you to
 use the terminal's default colors for the default color pair,
 achieving the effect of transparent colors.
 </li>

<li>
 The functions <code>keyok</code> and
 <code>define_key</code> 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.
 </li>

<li>
 Support for 256-color terminals, such as modern xterm.
 </li>

<li>
 Support for 16-color terminals, such as aixterm
 and modern xterm.
 </li>

<li>
 Better cursor-movement optimization. The package now
 features a cursor-local-movement computation more efficient
 than either BSD's or System V's.
 </li>

<li>
 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
 <code>quickch</code> routine.
 </li>

<li>
 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.
 </li>

<li>
 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).
 </li>

<li>
 The <a href="@HOMEPAGE@/man/tic.1m.html">tic</a>/<a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo</a> utility
 provided with ncurses has the
 ability to translate many termcaps from the XENIX, IBM and
 AT&amp;T extension sets.
 </li>

<li>
 A BSD-like <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/tset.1.html">tset</a> utility is provided.
 </li>

<li>
 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.
 </li>

<li>
 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.)
 </li>

<li>
 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.
 </li>

<li>
 The table-of-entries utility <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/man/toe.1m.html">toe</a> makes it easy for users to see
 exactly what terminal types are available on the system.
 </li>

<li>
 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 <code>#undef</code>.
 </li>

<li>
 Extensive documentation is provided (see the <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses.faq.html#additional_reading">Additional
 Reading</a> section of the <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses.faq.html">ncurses FAQ</a> for online
 documentation).
 </li>
 </ul>

<h2><a name="h2-who-uses" id="h2-who-uses">Applications using
 ncurses</a></h2>

The ncurses distribution
 includes a selection of test programs (including a few games).
 These are available separately as <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-examples.html">ncurses-examples</a>

The ncurses library has been tested with a wide variety of
 applications including:

<blockquote>
 <dl>
 <dt>aptitude
 </dt>

<dd>
 FrontEnd to Apt, the debian package manager

<a href=
 "https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude">https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 Curses Development Kit

<a href="@WEBSITE@/cdk/">@WEBSITE@/cdk/</a> 
 
 </dd>

<dd>
 directory-editor

<a href="@WEBSITE@/ded/">@WEBSITE@/ded/</a>
 </dd>

<dt>dialog
 </dt>

<dd>
 the underlying application used in Slackware's setup,
 and the basis for similar install/configure applications on
 many systems.

<a href="@WEBSITE@/dialog/">@WEBSITE@/dialog/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 the text WWW browser

<a href=
 "https://lynx.invisible-island.net/">https://lynx.invisible-island.net/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 mail utility

<dt>ncftp
 </dt>

<dd>
 file-transfer utility

<a href=
 "https://www.ncftp.com/">https://www.ncftp.com/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 New vi uses ncurses.

<a href=
 "https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi">https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi</a>

</dd>

<dt>ranger
 </dt>

<dd>
 A console file manager with VI key bindings in
 Python.

<a href=
 "https://ranger.github.io/">https://ranger.github.io/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 newsreader, supporting color, MIME

<dd>
 File manager with vi like keybindings

<a href="https://vifm.info/">https://vifm.info/</a>
 </dd>
 </dl>
 </blockquote>

as well as some that use ncurses for the terminfo support alone:

<blockquote>
 <dl>
 <dt>minicom
 </dt>

<dd>
 terminal emulator for serial modem connections

<a href=
 "https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 a replacement for <code>ssh</code>.

<a href=
 "https://mosh.mit.edu/">https://mosh.mit.edu/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 terminfo action checker

<a href="@HOMEPAGE@/tack.html">@HOMEPAGE@/tack.html</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 terminal multiplexor

<a href=
 "https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki">https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 vi-like-emacs may be built to use the terminfo,
 termcap or curses interfaces.

<a href="@WEBSITE@/vile/">@WEBSITE@/vile/</a>
 </dd>
 </dl>
 </blockquote>

and finally, those which use only the termcap interface:

<blockquote>
 <dl>
 <dt>emacs
 </dt>

<dd>
 text editor

<a href=
 "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 The most commonly used pager (a program that
 displays text files).

<a href=
 "http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/">http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/</a>
 </dd>

<dt>screen
 </dt>

<dd>
 terminal multiplexor

<a href=
 "https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/</a>
 </dd>

<dd>
 text editor

<a href="https://www.vim.org/">https://www.vim.org/</a>
 </dd>
 </dl>
 </blockquote>

<h2><a name="h2-development" id="h2-development">Development
 activities</a></h2>

Zeyd Ben-Halim started ncurses
 from a previous package pcurses, written by Pavel Curtis. Eric S.
 Raymond continued development. J&uuml;rgen Pfeifer wrote most of
 the form and menu libraries.

Ongoing development work is done by <a href=
 "mailto:dickey@invisible-island.net">Thomas E. Dickey</a>. Thomas
 E. Dickey has acted as the maintainer for the Free Software
 Foundation, which holds a <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-license.html">copyright on ncurses</a> for
 releases 4.2 through 6.1. Following the release of ncurses 6.1,
 effective as of release 6.2, copyright for ncurses reverted to
 Thomas E. Dickey (see the <a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses.faq.html#relicensed">ncurses FAQ</a> for
 additional information).

Contact the current maintainers at

<blockquote>
 <a href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">bug-ncurses@gnu.org</a>
 </blockquote>

To join the ncurses mailing list, please write email to

<blockquote>
 <a href=
 "mailto:bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org">bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org</a>
 </blockquote>
 containing the line:

<blockquote>
 <code>subscribe</code>
 &lt;name&gt;@&lt;host.domain&gt;
 </blockquote>

This list is open to anyone interested in helping with the
 development and testing of this package.

Beta versions of ncurses are
 made available at

<blockquote>
 <a href=
 "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/current/</a>
 and 
 <a href=
 "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/current/</a>&nbsp;.
 </blockquote>

Patches to the current release are made available at

<blockquote>
 <a href=
 "ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/">ftp://ftp.invisible-island.net/ncurses/6.1/</a>
 and 
 <a href=
 "https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/">https://invisible-mirror.net/archives/ncurses/6.1/</a>&nbsp;.
 </blockquote>

There is an archive of the mailing list here:

<blockquote>
 <a href=
 "http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses">http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses</a>
 (also <a href=
 "https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses">https</a>)
 </blockquote>

<h2><a name="h2-this-stuff" id="h2-this-stuff">Related
 resources</a></h2>

The release notes make scattered references to these pages,
 which may be interesting by themselves:

<ul>
 <li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-license.html">ncurses licensing</a></li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-mapsyms.html">Symbol versioning
 in ncurses</a></li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses-slang.html">Comments on
 ncurses versus slang (S-Lang)</a></li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/tack.html">tack &ndash; terminfo action
 checker</a></li>

<li><a href="@HOMEPAGE@/tctest.html">tctest &ndash; termcap
 library checker</a></li>

<li><a href=
 "@HOMEPAGE@/ncurses.html#download_database">Terminal
 Database</a></li>
 </ul>

<h2><a name="h2-other-stuff" id="h2-other-stuff">Other
 resources</a></h2>

The distribution provides a newer version of the
 terminfo-format terminal description file once maintained by
 <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/terminfo/">Eric
 Raymond</a>&nbsp;. Unlike the older version, the termcap and
 terminfo data are provided in the same file, which also provides
 several user-definable extensions beyond the X/Open
 specification.

You can find lots of information on terminal-related topics
 not covered in the terminfo file at <a href=
 "http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal">
 Richard Shuford's archive</a>&nbsp;. The collection of computer
 manuals at <a href=
 "http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/">bitsavers.org</a> has also been
 useful.

<div class="nav">
 <ul>
 <li><a href="#h2-overview">Overview</a></li>

<li>
 <a href="#h2-release-notes">Release Notes</a>

<ul>
 <li>
 <a href="#h3-library">Library improvements</a>

<ul>
 <li><a href="#h4-new-library">New features</a></li>

<li><a href="#h4-fixes-library">Other
 improvements</a></li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li>
 <a href="#h3-programs">Program improvements</a>

<ul>
 <li><a href="#h4-utilities">Utilities</a></li>

<li><a href="#h4-examples">Examples</a></li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li><a href="#h3-database">Terminal database</a></li>

<li><a href="#h3-documentation">Documentation</a></li>

<li><a href="#h3-bug-fixes">Interesting bug-fixes</a></li>

<li>
 <a href="#h3-config-config">Configuration changes</a>

<ul>
 <li><a href="#h4-config-major">Major changes</a></li>

<li><a href="#h4-config-options">Configuration
 options</a></li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li><a href="#h3-portability">Portability</a></li>
 </ul>
 </li>

<li><a href="#h2-features">Features of ncurses</a></li>

<li><a href="#h2-who-uses">Applications using ncurses</a></li>

<li><a href="#h2-development">Development activities</a></li>

<li><a href="#h2-this-stuff">Related resources</a></li>

<li><a href="#h2-other-stuff">Other resources</a></li>
 </ul>
 </div>
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