116 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
116 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
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Random remarks about the ncurses support for GoldEd+
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by Jacobo Tarrio, 2:348/105.93@fidonet <jtarrio@iname.com>
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This version of GoldEd+ bears the fourth public release of the ncurses
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implementation of its video code; it's still considered beta, so expect some
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strange behaviour while it is being completed.
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It is being done in order to allow any Unix clone with ncurses installed
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(and, probably, any implementation of curses) to run GoldEd+, independently
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of the character set used by the system and of the terminal type; GoldEd+
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will run fine from the console with a cyrillic character set, from a xterm
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with the iso-8859-1 character set, or from a monochrome VT-100 dumb
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terminal. It might even be possible in the near future to use GoldEd+
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compiled for DOS, Win32 or OS/2, and linked with PDCurses.
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This file tries to list some already known bugs along with other nasty
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"features" of the code. Expect most of these bugs to disappear and a lot of
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fresh new ones to show up in the next public release of the ncurses support
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:-) However, I do not always succeed, so, old, already existing bugs are
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marked with '!', whilst new ones are marked with '*'.
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If you find any bug not listed here, please report to Jacobo Tarrio,
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2:348/105.93@fidonet <jtarrio@iname.com> ASAP to get it fixed soon, or,
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even better, fix it yourself and send me the patch :-)
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=== 2000-04-19: Fourth public release
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Known bugs:
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! Messages from the program viewed before entering full-screen are not
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displayed properly
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Notes:
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* I'm downgrading this one from bug to note: "Screen may become corrupted if
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someone other than GoldEd+ writes on the terminal". As it happens with
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other platforms too, I'm considering it no longer a ncurses-specific bug.
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* Trouble with your function keys? I'm sorry but I cannot help it. Every
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kind of terminal manages function keys differently, so they cannot be
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relied upon. Well, there IS a way to get function keys et.al. reliably and
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all, but that would make GoldED+ unportable, bloated and fragile, and
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neither I nor you want it, do you? Workaround: map these functions to
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regular keys.
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=== 2000-02-17: Third public release
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Known bugs:
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! Statusline displays a couple of odd characters (after GoldEd+'s name and
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before the current time)
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! Screen may become corrupted if someone other than GoldEd+ writes on the
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terminal
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! Messages from the program viewed before entering full-screen are not
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displayed properly
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* The cursor grows very big every 30 seconds when editing a message
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(possible reincarnation of a similar bug in former versions)
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* The splash screen looks ugly, but not as much as before :)
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Notes:
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* ESCDELAY is now set by default to 50ms. If it is too short for you, you
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can set the ESCDELAY environment variable to override it (under ncurses).
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It must hold an integer value representing the delay in milliseconds.
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Quite useful over wide area network links or on very-very-i-really-mean-it
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slow terminals. Undocumented in ncurses 4, but functional. Documented
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in ncurses 5 and above (I believe).
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=== 2000-02-05: Second public release
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Known bugs:
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! The splash screen looks a bit ugly :-)
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! The cursor disappears every 30 seconds when editing a message
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* Statusline displays a couple of odd characters (after GoldEd+'s name and
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before the current time)
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* Screen may become corrupted if someone other than GoldEd+ writes on the
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terminal
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* Messages from the program viewed before entering full-screen are not
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displayed properly
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Notes:
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* I have "ment" the escape key affair (see below) by using some sort of
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ncurses version detection and the so. If this misfeature (for I'm sure it
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is going to give more trouble than good) annoys you, you can change the
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delay after escape by modifying the "ESCDELAY = 50;" assignment at the
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file 'goldlib/gall/gkbdbase.cpp', or by commenting it out.
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Anyway, you should perhaps be able, with this default setting, to "press"
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ALT on terminals that don't have this, by pressing ESC and the desired key
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very quickly :-)
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=== 2000-01-25: First public release
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Known bugs:
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* Tab key does not work properly
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* Boxes are seen fine (at least with Latin-1) but lines are still drawn
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with hyphens (-), plus signs (+), vertical lines (|) and the so.
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* The splash screen looks a bit ugly :-)
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* The box in the screensaver leaves traces when moving
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* The cursor disappears every 30 seconds when editing a message
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Notes:
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* When pressing the escape key, you must wait for 1 second for GoldEd+ to
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take action. This is due to the way most terminals send function keys and
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keypad presses; they send ESC followed by some characters, and curses
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waits for these characters to arrive. There is a way to shorten the
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timeout to, say, 30ms, which is suitable for a 300-baud terminal and still
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too fast for humans to notice, but it would make GoldEd+ dependant of a
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particular implementation of curses, and of a particular version of that
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implementation; also, it would make GoldEd+ unusable over a network or
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with some dumb terminals or terminal emulators; this way you can press
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ESC followed immediately by an A to "press" ALT-A.
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