| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| -- Copyright (c) 1998-2010,2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. -- |
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| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| -- $Id: TO-DO,v 1.57 2011/03/28 00:23:02 tom Exp $ |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| SHORT-TERM TO-DO ITEMS: |
| |
| Known Problems: |
| |
| + libtool does not work with GNAT. |
| |
| + The screen optimization has been tested only in an ad hoc manner. We should |
| develop a good set of regression tests to cover lib_doupdate.c and |
| lib_mvcur.c. |
| |
| + Magic cookie support (for nonzero xmc values) does not work, since the logic |
| does not take into account refresh. Also, the initial optimize does not |
| adjust the current location when a cookie is emitted. |
| |
| + Scrolling optimization has holes: for example, it forces repaints of the |
| screen between calls to refresh(). |
| |
| + SVr4 uses slightly different rules for determining when softkeys are shown. |
| For example, they are initially displayed (before the ncurses 'e' test |
| activates them), and a touchwin can apparently also force them to be |
| displayed. |
| |
| + The code departs from perfect 8-bit cleanness in one respect; you cannot |
| specify a character \200 as part of a capability string, because the |
| terminfo library interprets \200 as a request to embed NUL (\000) at that |
| point. This is a legacy terminfo property we can't mess with. |
| |
| + The window classes defined in the c++ subdirectory need documentation. Some |
| C++ programmer could earn a lot of good karma by doing this... |
| |
| + vid_attr() should support the set_a_attributes (sgr1) string, but does not. |
| There appear to be no terminals that require that functionality. |
| |
| + the configure --disable-ext-funcs option does not work for Ada95 tree. |
| |
| + the --with-pthread configuration builds for Cygwin, but does not work |
| properly (test/worm.c shows all of the worms in the same location). |
| |
| + the --enable-rpath configure option builds for the corresponding platforms; |
| however combining it with --with-ticlib and --with-termlib does not always |
| produce libraries that can be run without setting environment variables. |
| Building those with libtool does not work either. (This is a problem with |
| the BSD platforms). |
| |
| + more work is needed to make the MinGW port support ordinary terminals. |
| |
| Portability (or lack thereof): |
| |
| + Users of older System V UNIXes (but not Solaris, and probably not SVr4) may |
| trip over a known problem with the signal-handling code which causes abrupt |
| termination of ncurses applications following resume from a ^Z suspend (this |
| problem was first seen running lynx). You will not see this problem if you |
| are using one of the 4.4BSD derivatives like such as, NetBSD, or BSDI, or |
| systems using that convention. For details, see the analysis in the header |
| comment of ncurses/tty/lib_tstp.c . |
| |
| + In theory, vwprintw and vwscanf are supposed to use the older varargs.h |
| interface for handling variadic argument lists (and are deprecated by X/Open |
| for that reason). Many newer systems do no have varargs.h, instead they have |
| only the newer X/Open-standard stdargs.h equivalent. So these functions use |
| stdargs instead. This is unlikely to be a problem unless you're building |
| ncurses on a System V old enough to only have varargs.h. (Solaris 2.5.1 used |
| the stdarg.h binding as well). |
| |
| + If you're using a system old enough not to have a native vsscanf(3) in its |
| library, vwscanw() will not work. If you want to fix this, add an |
| implementation to ncurses/vsscanf.c. |
| |
| + The C++ binding fails to build with a few C++ compilers. |
| |
| + terminfo.5 does not format with the SunOS (and most other platform's) tbl |
| utility because it relies on a diversion for each table entry. Get the |
| groff package. |
| |
| Untested features: |
| |
| + The code for the HP color model using set_color_pair is untested. |
| |
| + The code for handling soft labels on a terminal type with built-in support |
| for them (num_labels > 0, label_height, label_width, label_format, label_off, |
| label_on, plab_norm, lab_f*) has not been tested. The label_format and |
| lab_f* capabilities aren't presently used. |
| |
| LONGER-TERM TO-DO ITEMS: |
| |
| 1. Extended COSE conformance |
| |
| There is an XPG4 standard released in 1996 which describes a superset |
| of the SVr4 API. The library is BASE conformant with this standard. |
| We would like to make ncurses fully conformant at the EXTENDED level |
| supporting internationalization. |
| |
| 2. DOS port |
| |
| Only a few of the files in the library depend on the terminfo format. |
| It should be possible to further kernelize the package, then rewrite |
| a small number of core files to produce a functionally-compatible |
| port that would do updates to a memory-mapped screen area. The first |
| result of this would be a DOS port. |
| |
| 3. X port |
| |
| It would be nice if ncurses could recognize when it was running under X and |
| maintain its own window. With this feature, all ncurses programs would |
| automatically become X programs. The challenge is to handle resize events |
| properly. |
| |
| 4. Unused capabilities |
| |
| The currently unused capabilities fall naturally into several groups: |
| |
| A. Status-line capabilities: |
| |
| Booleans: has_status_line, status_line_esc_ok. |
| Numerics: width_status_line. |
| Strings: dis_status_line, from_status_line, to_status_line. |
| |
| System V Release 1 curses made no use of these at all. SVr4's use, if |
| any, is unknown. From the AT&T termcap file it looks like curses, in general, |
| shouldn't use them; terminal variants with status lines have their line count |
| decremented by 1, suggesting that curses is supposed to leave the status line |
| alone. |
| |
| B. Printer capabilities: |
| |
| Boolean: col_addr_glitch, cr_cancels_micro_mode, has_print_wheel, |
| row_addr_glitch, semi_auto_right_margin, cpi_changes_res, |
| lpi_changes_res. |
| Numeric: buffer_capacity, dot_horz_spacing, dot_vert_spacing, |
| max_micro_address, max_micro_jump, micro_col_size, |
| micro_line_size, number_of_pins, output_res_char, |
| output_res_line, output_res_horz_inch, print_rate, |
| wide_char_size, bit_image_entwining, bit_image_type. |
| String: down_half_line, form_feed, up_half_line, set_left_margin, |
| set_right_margin, clear_margins, change_char_pitch |
| ... set_page_length (all the SVr4 printer caps), |
| |
| Curses doesn't use these. |
| |
| C. Printer-control capabilities: |
| |
| Boolean: prtr_silent. |
| Strings: print_screen, prtr_on, prtr_off, prtr_non. |
| |
| Curses doesn't use these. |
| |
| D. Dialer strings: |
| |
| Strings: hangup, dial_phone, quick_dial, tone, pulse, flash_hook, |
| fixed_pause, wait_tone. |
| |
| Curses doesn't use these. |
| |
| E. Window and virtual-terminal capabilities: |
| |
| Numerics: maximum_windows, virtual_terminal. |
| Strings: req_for_input, create_window, goto_window, set_window. |
| |
| These seem to be fossils from some AT&T experiments on character-based |
| window systems that never escaped the lab. The virtual_terminal cap had |
| something to do with building terminal emulations into tty line disciplines. |
| |
| F. Unused VDT capabilities: |
| |
| Booleans: erase_overstrike, has_meta_key, insert_null_glitch, |
| move_insert, dest_tabs_magic_smso, transparent_underline, |
| needs_xon_xoff, hard_cursor. |
| Numerics: lines_of_memory, buttons. |
| Strings: pkey_key, pkey_local, pkey_xmit, underline_char, |
| enter_xon_mode, exit_xon_mode, xon_character, xoff_character, |
| display_clock, remove_clock, user[0-5], display_pc_char, |
| enter_scancode_mode, exit_scancode_mode, pc_term_options, |
| scancode_escape, alt_scancode_esc. |
| |
| These are the potentially important ones for ncurses. Notes: |
| |
| i) ncurses doesn't need move_insert; it never uses cup/hpa/vpa while |
| insert_mode is on. |
| |
| ii) We probably don't care about dest_tabs_magic_smso; only |
| Telerays used it and they're all long obsolete. |
| |
| -- vile:txtmode |
