-- $Id: TO-DO,v 1.43 2004/02/08 21:09:00 tom Exp $ SHORT-TERM TO-DO ITEMS: Known Problems: * The form/menu libraries do not use wide-character features. * Some users would like to build a single version of libtinfo which can be used from either libncursesw or libncurses. * 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 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... * The resizeterm() function does not handle ripped-off lines such as that done for the slk_XXX functions. 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. 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 uses 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, mainly with configure script problems with vsscanf(). * 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 recently released 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 16 of the 55 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.
