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Rather than change 70 the meaning of an existing capability, a new name was added. The 71 terminfo database uses a binary format; binary compatibility was 72 ensured by using a header which gave the number of items in the tables 73 for each type of capability. The standardization was incomplete: 74 75 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <EM>binary</EM> <EM>format</EM> itself is not described in the X/Open Curses 76 documentation. Only the <EM>source</EM> <EM>format</EM> is described. 77 78 Library developers rely upon the SVr4 documentation, and reverse- 79 engineering the compiled terminfo files to match the binary format. 80 81 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Lacking a standard for the binary format, most implementations copy 82 the SVr2 binary format, which uses 16-bit signed integers, and is 83 limited to 4096-byte entries. 84 85 The format cannot represent very large numeric capabilities, nor 86 can it represent large numbers of special keyboard definitions. 87 88 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The tables of capability names differ between implementations. 89 90 Although they <EM>may</EM> provide all of the standard capability names, the 91 position in the tables differs because some features were added as 92 needed, while others were added (out of order) to comply with 93 X/Open Curses. 94 95 While <EM>ncurses</EM>' repertoire of predefined capabilities is closest to 96 Solaris, Solaris's terminfo database has a few differences from the 97 list published by X/Open Curses. For example, <EM>ncurses</EM> can be 98 configured with tables which match the terminal databases for AIX, 99 HP-UX or OSF/1, rather than the default Solaris-like configuration. 100 101 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In SVr4 curses and <EM>ncurses</EM>, the terminal database is defined at 102 compile-time using a text file which lists the different terminal 103 capabilities. 104 105 In principle, the text-file can be extended, but doing this 106 requires recompiling and reinstalling the library. The text-file 107 used in <EM>ncurses</EM> for terminal capabilities includes details for 108 various systems past the documented X/Open Curses features. For 109 example, <EM>ncurses</EM> supports these capabilities in each configuration: 110 111 memory_lock 112 (meml) lock memory above cursor 113 114 memory_unlock 115 (memu) unlock memory 116 117 box_chars_1 118 (box1) box characters primary set 119 120 The memory lock/unlock capabilities were included because they were 121 used in the X11R6 terminal description for <STRONG>xterm(1)</STRONG>. The <EM>box1</EM> 122 capability is used in tic to help with terminal descriptions 123 written for AIX. 124 125 During the 1990s, some users were reluctant to use terminfo in spite of 126 its performance advantages over termcap: 127 128 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The fixed repertoire prevented users from adding features for 129 unanticipated terminal improvements (or required them to reuse 130 existing capabilities as a workaround). 131 132 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The limitation to 16-bit signed integers was also mentioned. 133 Because termcap stores everything as a string, it could represent 134 larger numbers. 135 136 Although termcap's extensibility was rarely used (it was never the 137 <EM>speaker</EM> who had actually used the feature), the criticism had a point. 138 <EM>ncurses</EM> 5.0 provided a way to detect nonstandard capabilities, 139 determine their type and optionally store and retrieve them in a way 140 which did not interfere with other applications. These are referred to 141 as <EM>user-defined</EM> <EM>capabilities</EM> because no modifications to the toolset's 142 predefined capability names are needed. 143 144 The <EM>ncurses</EM> utilities <STRONG>tic</STRONG> and <STRONG>infocmp</STRONG> have a command-line option "-x" 145 to control whether the nonstandard capabilities are stored or 146 retrieved. A library function <STRONG>use_extended_names</STRONG> is provided for the 147 same purpose. 148 149 When compiling a terminal database, if "-x" is set, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> will store a 150 user-defined capability if the capability name is not one of the 151 predefined names. 152 153 Because <EM>ncurses</EM> provides a termcap library interface, these user- 154 defined capabilities may be visible to termcap applications: 155 156 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The termcap interface (like all implementations of termcap) 157 requires that the capability names are 2-characters. 158 159 When the capability is simple enough for use in a termcap 160 application, it is provided as a 2-character name. 161 162 <STRONG>o</STRONG> There are other user-defined capabilities which refer to features 163 not usable in termcap, e.g., parameterized strings that use more 164 than two parameters or use more than the trivial expression support 165 provided by termcap. For these, the terminfo database should have 166 only capability names with 3 or more characters. 167 168 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Some terminals can send distinct strings for special keys (cursor-, 169 keypad- or function-keys) depending on modifier keys (shift, 170 control, etc.). While terminfo and termcap have a set of 60 171 predefined function-key names, to which a series of keys can be 172 assigned, that is insufficient for more than a dozen keys 173 multiplied by more than a couple of modifier combinations. The 174 <EM>ncurses</EM> database uses a convention based on <STRONG>xterm(1)</STRONG> to provide 175 extended special-key names. 176 177 Fitting that into termcap's limitation of 2-character names would 178 be pointless. These extended keys are available only with 179 terminfo. 180 181 182</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Recognized-Capabilities">Recognized Capabilities</a></H3><PRE> 183 The <EM>ncurses</EM> library uses the user-definable capabilities. While the 184 terminfo database may have other extensions, <EM>ncurses</EM> makes explicit 185 checks for these: 186 187 AX <EM>Boolean</EM>, asserts that the terminal interprets SGR 39 and SGR 49 188 by resetting the foreground and background color, respectively, 189 to the default. 190 191 This is a feature recognized by the <STRONG>screen</STRONG> program as well. 192 193 E3 <EM>string</EM>, tells how to clear the terminal's scrollback buffer. 194 When present, the <STRONG><A HREF="clear.1.html">clear(1)</A></STRONG> program sends this before clearing the 195 terminal. 196 197 The command "<STRONG>tput</STRONG> <STRONG>clear</STRONG>" does the same thing. 198 199 NQ <EM>Boolean</EM>, used to suppress a consistency check in tic for the 200 <EM>ncurses</EM> capabilities in user6 through user9 (u6, u7, u8 and u9) 201 which tell how to query the terminal's cursor position and its 202 device attributes. 203 204 RGB 205 <EM>Boolean</EM>, <EM>number</EM> <STRONG>or</STRONG> <EM>string</EM>, used to assert that the 206 <STRONG>set_a_foreground</STRONG> and <STRONG>set_a_background</STRONG> capabilities correspond to 207 <EM>direct</EM> <EM>colors</EM>, using an RGB (red/green/blue) convention. This 208 capability allows the <STRONG>color_content</STRONG> function to return 209 appropriate values without requiring the application to 210 initialize colors using <STRONG>init_color</STRONG>. 211 212 The capability type determines the values which <EM>ncurses</EM> sees: 213 214 <EM>Boolean</EM> 215 implies that the number of bits for red, green and blue are 216 the same. Using the maximum number of colors, <EM>ncurses</EM> adds 217 two, divides that sum by three, and assigns the result to red, 218 green and blue in that order. 219 220 If the number of bits needed for the number of colors is not a 221 multiple of three, the blue (and green) components lose in 222 comparison to red. 223 224 <EM>number</EM> 225 tells <EM>ncurses</EM> what result to add to red, green and blue. If 226 <EM>ncurses</EM> runs out of bits, blue (and green) lose just as in the 227 <EM>Boolean</EM> case. 228 229 <EM>string</EM> 230 explicitly list the number of bits used for red, green and 231 blue components as a slash-separated list of decimal integers. 232 233 Because there are several RGB encodings in use, applications 234 which make assumptions about the number of bits per color are 235 unlikely to work reliably. As a trivial case, for example, one 236 could define <STRONG>RGB#1</STRONG> to represent the standard eight ANSI colors, 237 i.e., one bit per color. 238 239 U8 <EM>number</EM>, asserts that <EM>ncurses</EM> must use Unicode values for line- 240 drawing characters, and that it should ignore the alternate 241 character set capabilities when the locale uses UTF-8 encoding. 242 For more information, see the discussion of <STRONG>NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS</STRONG> 243 in <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG>. 244 245 Set this capability to a nonzero value to enable it. 246 247 XM <EM>string</EM>, override <EM>ncurses</EM>'s built-in string which enables/disables 248 <STRONG>xterm(1)</STRONG> mouse mode. 249 250 <EM>ncurses</EM> sends a character sequence to the terminal to initialize 251 mouse mode, and when the user clicks the mouse buttons or (in 252 certain modes) moves the mouse, handles the characters sent back 253 by the terminal to tell it what was done with the mouse. 254 255 The mouse protocol is enabled when the <EM>mask</EM> passed in the 256 <STRONG>mousemask</STRONG> function is nonzero. By default, <EM>ncurses</EM> handles the 257 responses for the X11 xterm mouse protocol. It also knows about 258 the <EM>SGR</EM> <EM>1006</EM> xterm mouse protocol, but must to be told to look 259 for this specifically. It will not be able to guess which mode 260 is used, because the responses are enough alike that only 261 confusion would result. 262 263 The <STRONG>XM</STRONG> capability has a single parameter. If nonzero, the mouse 264 protocol should be enabled. If zero, the mouse protocol should 265 be disabled. <EM>ncurses</EM> inspects this capability if it is present, 266 to see whether the 1006 protocol is used. If so, it expects the 267 responses to use the <EM>SGR</EM> <EM>1006</EM> xterm mouse protocol. 268 269 The xterm mouse protocol is used by other terminal emulators. 270 The terminal database uses building-blocks for the various xterm 271 mouse protocols which can be used in customized terminal 272 descriptions. 273 274 The terminal database building blocks for this mouse feature also 275 have an experimental capability <EM>xm</EM>. The "xm" capability 276 describes the mouse response. Currently there is no interpreter 277 which would use this information to make the mouse support 278 completely data-driven. 279 280 <EM>xm</EM> shows the format of the mouse responses. In this experimental 281 capability, the parameters are 282 283 <EM>p1</EM> y-ordinate 284 285 <EM>p2</EM> x-ordinate 286 287 <EM>p3</EM> button 288 289 <EM>p4</EM> state, e.g., pressed or released 290 291 <EM>p5</EM> y-ordinate starting region 292 293 <EM>p6</EM> x-ordinate starting region 294 295 <EM>p7</EM> y-ordinate ending region 296 297 <EM>p8</EM> x-ordinate ending region 298 299 Here are examples from the terminal database for the most 300 commonly used xterm mouse protocols: 301 302 xterm+x11mouse|X11 xterm mouse protocol, 303 kmous=\E[M, XM=\E[?1000%?%p1%{1}%=%th%el%;, 304 xm=\E[M 305 %?%p4%t%p3%e%{3}%;%' '%+%c 306 %p2%'!'%+%c 307 %p1%'!'%+%c, 308 309 xterm+sm+1006|xterm SGR-mouse, 310 kmous=\E[<, XM=\E[?1006;1000%?%p1%{1}%=%th%el%;, 311 xm=\E[<%i%p3%d; 312 %p1%d; 313 %p2%d; 314 %?%p4%tM%em%;, 315 316 317</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Extended-Key-Definitions">Extended Key Definitions</a></H3><PRE> 318 Several terminals provide the ability to send distinct strings for 319 combinations of modified special keys. There is no standard for what 320 those keys can send. 321 322 Since 1999, <STRONG>xterm(1)</STRONG> has supported <EM>shift</EM>, <EM>control</EM>, <EM>alt</EM>, and <EM>meta</EM> 323 modifiers which produce distinct special-key strings. In a terminal 324 description, <EM>ncurses</EM> has no special knowledge of the modifiers used. 325 Applications can use the <EM>naming</EM> <EM>convention</EM> established for <STRONG>xterm</STRONG> to 326 find these special keys in the terminal description. 327 328 Starting with the <EM>curses</EM> convention that capability codes describing 329 the input generated by a terminal's key caps begin with "k", and that 330 shifted special keys use uppercase letters in their names, <EM>ncurses</EM>'s 331 terminal database defines the following names and codes to which a 332 suffix is added. 333 334 <STRONG>Code</STRONG> <STRONG>Description</STRONG> 335 ------------------------------------------------------------------- 336 <STRONG>kDC</STRONG> shifted kdch1 (delete character) 337 <STRONG>kDN</STRONG> shifted kcud1 (cursor down) 338 <STRONG>kEND</STRONG> shifted kend (end) 339 <STRONG>kHOM</STRONG> shifted khome (home) 340 <STRONG>kLFT</STRONG> shifted kcub1 (cursor back) 341 <STRONG>kNXT</STRONG> shifted knext (next) 342 <STRONG>kPRV</STRONG> shifted kprev (previous) 343 <STRONG>kRIT</STRONG> shifted kcuf1 (cursor forward) 344 <STRONG>kUP</STRONG> shifted kcuu1 (cursor up) 345 346 Keycap nomenclature on the Unix systems for which <EM>curses</EM> was developed 347 differs from today's ubiquitous descendants of the IBM PC/AT keyboard 348 layout. In the foregoing, interpret "backward" as "left", "forward" as 349 "right", "next" as "page down", and "prev(ious)" as "page up". 350 351 These are the suffixes used to denote the modifiers: 352 353 <STRONG>Value</STRONG> <STRONG>Description</STRONG> 354 ---------------------------------- 355 2 Shift 356 3 Alt 357 4 Shift + Alt 358 5 Control 359 6 Shift + Control 360 7 Alt + Control 361 8 Shift + Alt + Control 362 9 Meta 363 10 Meta + Shift 364 11 Meta + Alt 365 12 Meta + Alt + Shift 366 13 Meta + Ctrl 367 14 Meta + Ctrl + Shift 368 15 Meta + Ctrl + Alt 369 16 Meta + Ctrl + Alt + Shift 370 371 None of these are predefined; terminal descriptions can refer to <EM>names</EM> 372 which <EM>ncurses</EM> will allocate at runtime to <EM>key-codes</EM>. To use these keys 373 in an <EM>ncurses</EM> program, an application could do this: 374 375 <STRONG>o</STRONG> using a list of extended key <EM>names</EM>, ask <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">tigetstr(3x)</A></STRONG> for their 376 values, and 377 378 <STRONG>o</STRONG> given the list of values, ask <STRONG><A HREF="key_defined.3x.html">key_defined(3x)</A></STRONG> for the <EM>key-code</EM> 379 which would be returned for those keys by <STRONG><A HREF="curs_getch.3x.html">wgetch(3x)</A></STRONG>. 380 381 382</PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE> 383 The "-x" extension feature of <STRONG>tic</STRONG> and <STRONG>infocmp</STRONG> has been adopted in 384 NetBSD curses. That implementation stores user-defined capabilities, 385 but makes no use of these capabilities itself. 386 387 388</PRE><H2><a name="h2-AUTHORS">AUTHORS</a></H2><PRE> 389 Thomas E. Dickey 390 beginning with <EM>ncurses</EM> 5.0 (1999) 391 392 393</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE> 394 <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG> 395 396 The terminal database section <EM>NCURSES</EM> <EM>USER-DEFINABLE</EM> <EM>CAPABILITIES</EM> 397 summarizes commonly-used user-defined capabilities which are used in 398 the terminal descriptions. Some of those features are mentioned in 399 <STRONG>screen(1)</STRONG> or <STRONG>tmux(1)</STRONG>. 400 401 <EM>XTerm</EM> <EM>Control</EM> <EM>Sequences</EM> provides further information on the <STRONG>xterm(1)</STRONG> 402 features that are used in these extended capabilities. 403 404 405 406ncurses 6.5 2024-03-16 <STRONG><A HREF="user_caps.5.html">user_caps(5)</A></STRONG> 407</PRE> 408<div class="nav"> 409<ul> 410<li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li> 411<li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li> 412<li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a> 413<ul> 414<li><a href="#h3-Background">Background</a></li> 415<li><a href="#h3-Recognized-Capabilities">Recognized Capabilities</a></li> 416<li><a href="#h3-Extended-Key-Definitions">Extended Key Definitions</a></li> 417</ul> 418</li> 419<li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li> 420<li><a href="#h2-AUTHORS">AUTHORS</a></li> 421<li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li> 422</ul> 423</div> 424</BODY> 425</HTML> 426