Programmer's Guide to NCurses

by Dan Gookin (Coeur d'Alene, Idaho)

• ISBN13: 9780470140130
• ISBN10: 0470140135
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2007-05-01
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

Programming the console in UNIX?Here's just what you need.First, you'll get a no-nonsense tutorial guide to the nCurses version 5.5 library, taking you from basic to advanced functions step by step. Then you'll find an A-to-Z reference of more than 175 nCurses functions, cross-referenced and illustrated with examples. With this all-purpose nCurses reference, youll: Learn techniques that can be used to program Linuxr, FreeBSDr, Mac OSr X, or any other UNIX-based OS. Program, control, and manipulate text on the terminal screen. Control interactive I/O, organize content into windows on the screen, and use color to highlight text and organize information. Use a mouse to further refine input. Create nCurses programs using your choice of editors. Find hundreds of quick, easy-to-understand programming examples. Author Dan Gookin is known for making technology make sense. Buy this book and you'll see why.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Assumptions

Curses or NCurses?

Conventions

Compatibility Issues

Contacting the Author

The Setup

NCurses Is a UNIX Thing

Run (Don't Walk) to a Terminal Screen Near You

Know Something About the Shell

Some Shelly Stuff

Know Your History, Because You're Going to Repeat It

Make a Place for Your Stuff

Using an Editor to Create an NCurses Program

Picking an Editor

Creating Your First NCurses Program

Some Deviations

Know Thy Compiler

Linking NCurses or Curses?

What Does the gcc Command Do?

Re-editing Your Source Code

Where Is the Program?

Fixing Stuff (Again)

Don't Panic When You Still Don't See Anything! Do You Think a.out Is a Goofy Name?

All Done! General Info

Handy Shell Commands to Know

Source Code Tidbits

Compiling Tips

Basic I/O, the NCurses Way

The Skeleton

The initscr() Function

The initscr() Function's Exceptions

The endwin() Function

The refresh() Function

Writing Text

Tossing Up Text One Stupid Character at a Time

Pausing for a Side-trip

Blurping Text

The move() Function

The Old Formatted Text Trick

Reading Text

The Silly Typewriter Program

Consuming a String Whole

Swallowing Only So Much of a String

The Obligatory scanw() Program

Formatting Text

Text Abuse with Text Attributes

More than Boring Black and White (but Not Much)

Testing Some Attributes

Multiple-Attribute Mania

Can It Do Color?

Colors and Color Pairs

Eight or Sixteen Colors?

Spruce Up Some Text! A Color Thing Your Terminal Probably Cannot Do

Coloring a Window

Screen Background Color

More than Solid

Changing Color on the Fly

Noise, Too!

Around the Window

Measuring the Standard Screen

The Size of the Window Is Y by X

And Now: the Shortcut

Moving the Cursor Around

Watch Out! I've Got You Cornered! Some Compacting

Center that Title! Some Fun with mvprintw()

Whither the Cursor?

More Text Manipulation

Inserting and Deleting Functions

Editing Shakespeare

Inserting Some Lines

Final Changes to Hamlet

Inserting One Character at a Time

A More Visual Example

Less of Hamlet

Goodbye, Chunk of Text! Out It Goes and in It Comes

Clearing and Zapping

Commands to Erase Chunks of the Screen

The Obligatory Test Program

Clear the Screen! Clear or Erase?

Clrto means Clear To

Less Blah on the End of a Line

Less Blah to the End of the Screen

You Mean that's It for My NCurses Erasing Fun and Excitement?

Keyboard Madness! Reading from the Keyboard

Is a Character Waiting?

Testing Waiting Characters

How to Implement kbhit()

Flushing Input

Silence, Please! Reading Special Keys

Keypad On! What's Where on the Keyboard

The Highlighted Menu Bar

Windows, Windows Everywhere! Ye Olde Standard Screen

Commands that Require a Window Argument

The Pseudo Commands

The Other Prefix, mv

Making Windows

The Obligatory New Window Sample Program

Switching between Windows

Windows of a Smaller Size

Removing a Window

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.