Very Computer

by **Bill Ju** » Thu, 27 Mar 2003 08:51:09

In an earlier post I asked about missing "line" characters in a
newt/slang app I'm putting on a boot-cd.

In trying some other approaches to the app devleopment, I started
looking at ncurses.

I built the test apps in /usr/share/doc/ncurses-devel-5.2/test on my
RH 8.0 system. Running Gnome, I opened a terminal, went to the "test"
directory and launched the app "ncurses" from the cmd-line. I was
able to create windows and look at the alternate character set, just
as I expected.

Then I switched to a virtual console via ctrl-alt-F2, logged in, again
went to the ncurses "test" directory as before, and launched the
"ncurses" app. This time, no line characters were drawn around my
defined window.

Why?? I wonder if the root cause of this observation relates to my
earlier question.

Thanks for your insights.

Bill Judd

by **Pratik Parik** » Thu, 27 Mar 2003 17:52:41

Quote:> I built the test apps in /usr/share/doc/ncurses-devel-5.2/test on my
> RH 8.0 system. Running Gnome, I opened a terminal, went to the "test"
> directory and launched the app "ncurses" from the cmd-line. I was
> able to create windows and look at the alternate character set, just
> as I expected.

> Then I switched to a virtual console via ctrl-alt-F2, logged in, again
> went to the ncurses "test" directory as before, and launched the
> "ncurses" app. This time, no line characters were drawn around my
> defined window.

> Why?? I wonder if the root cause of this observation relates to my
> earlier question.

AFAIK
ncurses apps usually don't run properly on the Gnome terminal. The best
terminal to test an ncurses app is a virtual console or an xterm.

If you want to see your app work properly on all terminals then you may have
to change the code just for that particular terminal. Eg. a wrefresh(w1) may
not refresh the screen properly on Gnome Terminal, then you have no other
option but to try something like
wrefresh (cursscr) i.e. refresh the whole screen not just w1.

by **Thomas Dicke** » Thu, 27 Mar 2003 19:35:27

> In an earlier post I asked about missing "line" characters in a
> newt/slang app I'm putting on a boot-cd.
> In trying some other approaches to the app devleopment, I started
> looking at ncurses.
> I built the test apps in /usr/share/doc/ncurses-devel-5.2/test on my
> RH 8.0 system. Running Gnome, I opened a terminal, went to the "test"

^^^^^^ (source of problem).

Quote:> directory and launched the app "ncurses" from the cmd-line. I was
> able to create windows and look at the alternate character set, just
> as I expected.

Redhat 8.0 switched to UTF-8 locale without providing ncurses libraries
configured to handle this. (At this point it appears that Redhat 8.1
will do the same thing - even Window95 does this sort of thing better ;-).

To handle UTF-8, ncurses must be configured with wide-character support.

The current version of ncurses is 5.3 (20021012)
There's an faq at
http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html

--

http://dickey.his.com
ftp://dickey.his.com

by **Thomas Dicke** » Thu, 27 Mar 2003 22:59:31

>> I built the test apps in /usr/share/doc/ncurses-devel-5.2/test on my
>> RH 8.0 system. Running Gnome, I opened a terminal, went to the "test"
....
> AFAIK
> ncurses apps usually don't run properly on the Gnome terminal. The best

actually they do (barring the not-unusual bug in gnome-terminal). Supposedly
it (like konsole) supports UTF-8, but I haven't seen it do that yet.

see also
http://invisible-island.net/vttest/

--

http://dickey.his.com
ftp://dickey.his.com

Very Computer

NCurses question: different terminals, different output, or "where'd the lines go?"... why?

NCurses question: different terminals, different output, or "where'd the lines go?"... why?

NCurses question: different terminals, different output, or "where'd the lines go?"... why?

NCurses question: different terminals, different output, or "where'd the lines go?"... why?

NCurses question: different terminals, different output, or "where'd the lines go?"... why?