| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| -- Copyright (c) 1998-2007,2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc. -- | |
| -- -- | |
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| -- The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included -- | |
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| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| -- $Id: TO-DO,v 1.51 2008/10/11 19:22:27 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). | |
| 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 running Linux or one of the 4.4BSD derivatives like FreeBSD, NetBSD, or | |
| BSDI. 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). Linux doesn't have varargs.h, it has 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 BSD earlier than 4.4BSD, or a Linux old enough not to have | |
| a native vsscanf(3) in its library, vwscanw() will not work. You lose. (It | |
| should work on any System V, however). 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 |