deb-goldedplus/docs/ncurses.txt

Sun Jul  9 00:19:23 2000

Random remarks about the ncurses support for GoldEd+
                  by Jacobo Tarrio, 2:348/105.93@fidonet <jtarrio@iname.com>

This version of GoldEd+ bears the fifth public release of the ncurses
implementation of its video code; it's still considered beta, so expect some
strange behaviour while it is being completed.

It is being done in order to allow any Unix clone with ncurses installed
(and, probably, any implementation of curses) to run GoldEd+, independently
of the character set used by the system and of the terminal type; GoldEd+
will run fine from the console with a cyrillic character set, from a xterm
with the iso-8859-1 character set, or from a monochrome VT-100 dumb
terminal. It might even be possible in the near future to use GoldEd+
compiled for DOS, Win32 or OS/2, and linked with PDCurses.

This file tries to list some already known bugs along with other nasty
"features" of the code. Expect most of these bugs to disappear and a lot of
fresh new ones to show up in the next public release of the ncurses support
:-) However, I do not always succeed, so, old, already existing bugs are
marked with '!', whilst new ones are marked with '*'.

If you find any bug not listed here, please report to Jacobo Tarrio,
2:348/105.93@fidonet <jtarrio@iname.com> ASAP to get it fixed soon, or,
even better, fix it yourself and send me the patch :-)

=== 2000-07-09: Fifth public release
Known bugs:

* None 8-)

Notes:

* Changed function key management to work as expected in Debian Potato. That's
  all I can do. I will do no more. Reason: function keys are not portable -
  repeat - they are not portable.


=== 2000-04-19: Fourth public release
Known bugs:

! Messages from the program viewed before entering full-screen are not
  displayed properly

Notes:

* I'm downgrading this one from bug to note: "Screen may become corrupted if
  someone other than GoldEd+ writes on the terminal". As it happens with
  other platforms too, I'm considering it no longer a ncurses-specific bug.
* Trouble with your function keys? I'm sorry but I cannot help it. Every
  kind of terminal manages function keys differently, so they cannot be
  relied upon. Well, there IS a way to get function keys et.al. reliably and
  all, but that would make GoldED+ unportable, bloated and fragile, and
  neither I nor you want it, do you? Workaround: map these functions to
  regular keys.


=== 2000-02-17: Third public release
Known bugs:

! Statusline displays a couple of odd characters (after GoldEd+'s name and
  before the current time)
! Screen may become corrupted if someone other than GoldEd+ writes on the
  terminal
! Messages from the program viewed before entering full-screen are not
  displayed properly
* The cursor grows very big every 30 seconds when editing a message
  (possible reincarnation of a similar bug in former versions)
* The splash screen looks ugly, but not as much as before :)

Notes:

* ESCDELAY is now set by default to 50ms. If it is too short for you, you
  can set the ESCDELAY environment variable to override it (under ncurses).
  It must hold an integer value representing the delay in milliseconds.
  Quite useful over wide area network links or on very-very-i-really-mean-it
  slow terminals. Undocumented in ncurses 4, but functional. Documented
  in ncurses 5 and above (I believe).


=== 2000-02-05: Second public release
Known bugs:

! The splash screen looks a bit ugly :-)
! The cursor disappears every 30 seconds when editing a message
* Statusline displays a couple of odd characters (after GoldEd+'s name and
  before the current time)
* Screen may become corrupted if someone other than GoldEd+ writes on the
  terminal
* Messages from the program viewed before entering full-screen are not
  displayed properly

Notes:

* I have "ment" the escape key affair (see below) by using some sort of
  ncurses version detection and the so. If this misfeature (for I'm sure it
  is going to give more trouble than good) annoys you, you can change the
  delay after escape by modifying the "ESCDELAY = 50;" assignment at the
  file 'goldlib/gall/gkbdbase.cpp', or by commenting it out.

  Anyway, you should perhaps be able, with this default setting, to "press"
  ALT on terminals that don't have this, by pressing ESC and the desired key
  very quickly :-)


=== 2000-01-25: First public release
Known bugs:

* Tab key does not work properly
* Boxes are seen fine (at least with Latin-1) but lines are still drawn
  with hyphens (-), plus signs (+), vertical lines (|) and the so.
* The splash screen looks a bit ugly :-)
* The box in the screensaver leaves traces when moving
* The cursor disappears every 30 seconds when editing a message

Notes:

* When pressing the escape key, you must wait for 1 second for GoldEd+ to
  take action. This is due to the way most terminals send function keys and
  keypad presses; they send ESC followed by some characters, and curses
  waits for these characters to arrive. There is a way to shorten the
  timeout to, say, 30ms, which is suitable for a 300-baud terminal and still
  too fast for humans to notice, but it would make GoldEd+ dependant of a
  particular implementation of curses, and of a particular version of that
  implementation; also, it would make GoldEd+ unusable over a network or
  with some dumb terminals or terminal emulators; this way you can press
  ESC followed immediately by an A to "press" ALT-A.