But no real answer as  to what to actually do.

(QUESTION: why the hell doesn't SUN supply the
damn thing!)

Google finds these "RPM" things (whatever *they* are), eg:

     19    [14]RPM resource libncurses.so.4
     20    RPM resource libncurses.so.4. Provided by. ncurses-5.0-9.ppc, A CRT
     21    screen handling and optimization package. Yellow Dog PPC. ncurses ...
        .
     22
     23    www.dlhoffman.com/publiclibrary/ RPM/libncurses.so.4.html - 4k -
     24    [15]Cached - [16]Similar pages

, one of which starts off like this (shown via lynx):

   [1]Index [2]index by Group [3]index by Distribution [4]index by
   Vendor [5]index by creation date [6]index by Name [7]Mirrors [8]Local
   Search

                    [9]ncurses-4.2p980321-1 RPM for ppc

                     From [10]Freshmeat / [11]ncurses

        Name: ncurses              Distribution: [12]Unknown
     Version: 4.2p980321  Vendor: [13]ObiTuarY <Obitu...@{*filter*}net.be>
          Release: 1         Build date: Fri Apr 24 19:03:05 1998
     Group: [14]Libraries       Build host: kernel.crashing.org
        Size: 2059404      Source RPM: ncurses-4.2p980321-1.src.rpm
              Packager: [15]ObiTuarY <Obitu...@{*filter*}net.be>
                Summary: Curses terminal control library

The curses library routines give the user a terminal-independent
method of updating character screens with reasonable optimization.
This implementation is ``new curses'' (ncurses) and is the approved
replacement for 4.4BSD classic curses, which is being discontinued.

  Provides

     * [16]ncurses
     * [17]libpanel.so.4
     * [18]libncurses.so.4
     * [19]libmenu.so.4
     * [20]libform.so.4
     * [21]libpanel.so.3.0
     * [22]libncurses.so.3.0
     * [23]libmenu.so.3.0
     * [24]libform.so.3.0

  Requires

     * [25]libncurses.so.4
     * [26]libc.so.6
     * [27]ld.so.1
     * [28]/sbin/ldconfig

  Copyright

Freely distributable

  Files

/lib/libncurses.so.4
/lib/libncurses.so.4.2
/usr/bin/captoinfo
/usr/bin/clear
/usr/bin/infocmp
/usr/bin/infotocap
/usr/bin/reset
/usr/bin/tic
/usr/bin/toe
/usr/bin/tput
/usr/bin/tset
/usr/doc/ncurses-4.2p980321
:set nonumber

....

/usr/share/terminfo/a/att730r-24
/usr/share/terminfo/a/att730r-41
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avatar
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avatar0
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avatar0+
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avatar1
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt+s
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-ns
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-rv
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-rv-ns
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-rv-s
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-s
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-w
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-w-ns
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-w-rv
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-w-rv-ns
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-w-rv-s
/usr/share/terminfo/a/avt-w-s
/usr/share/terminfo/a/aws
/usr/share/terminfo/a/awsc
/usr/share/terminfo/b
/usr/share/terminfo/b/b-128
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bantam
/usr/share/terminfo/b/basic4
/usr/share/terminfo/b/basis
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bct510a
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bct510d
/usr/share/terminfo/b/beacon
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bee
/usr/share/terminfo/b/beehive
/usr/share/terminfo/b/beehive3
/usr/share/terminfo/b/beehive4
/usr/share/terminfo/b/beehiveIIIm
/usr/share/terminfo/b/beterm
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bg1.25
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bg1.25nv
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bg1.25rv
/usr/share/terminfo/b/bg2.0

and goes on seemingly FOREVER...

question: what IS that thing?  What's it GOOD for?
  what does it TELL you?

PLEASE: anyone HAVE a libncurses that'll work with
lynx, mutt, vi, etc?

Perhaps you could just EMAIL me the thing -- as a package,
as a binary, whatever's easiest.

(Please don't make me try to compile it -- god knows
what *else* I'll find missing when trying to do it.  :-(  )

And can someone here from sun get it installed
on the NEXT companion cd?  Or next OS-release?

THANKS!

David

$ pkgchk -l -p /opt/sfw/lib/libncurses.so.5.2
Pathname: /opt/sfw/lib/libncurses.so.5.2
Type: regular file
Expected mode: 0755
Expected owner: root
Expected group: bin
Expected file size (bytes): 344276
Expected sum(1) of contents: 27898
Expected last modification: Mar 27 07:50:16 2002
Referenced by the following packages:
        SFWncur        
Current status: installed

For Solaris 9: http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/

For Solaris 8: http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/download.html

But not the cd's themseleves? :-)  It would seem to
be there on Solaris 9.

My home system with just stuff installed that is in the
Solaris 9 box has this library.  A quick look at
/var/sadm/install/contents shows it came as part of
the SFWncur package:

home-u60:~> grep ncurses /var/sadm/install/contents
/opt/sfw/include/ncurses.h=curses.h s none SFWncur
/opt/sfw/lib/libcurses.so=libncurses.so.5.2 s none SFWncur
/opt/sfw/lib/libncurses++.a f none 0444 root bin 248112 2544 1017237034 SFWncur
/opt/sfw/lib/libncurses.a f none 0444 root bin 459676 18768 1017237016 SFWncur
/opt/sfw/lib/libncurses.so=libncurses.so.5 s none SFWncur
/opt/sfw/lib/libncurses.so.5=libncurses.so.5.2 s none SFWncur
/opt/sfw/lib/libncurses.so.5.2 f none 0755 root bin 344276 27898 1017237016 SFWncur
/opt/sfw/lib/libncurses_g.a f none 0444 root bin 3473716 48101 1017237016 SFWncur
/opt/sfw/man/man3/ncurses.3x f none 0444 bin bin 34621 13902 1017237008 SFWncur

I've never need to know it's there - everything seems to be compiled
correctly to find it themselves.

Gavin

* David Combs <dkco...@panix.com>:

there are nice packaged software available from blastwave.org which
works out of the box.

There is also a working mutt version available which is linked against
slang which is better to work with.

        Thomas

Here's what I get when giving the same grep-cmd:

YOURS:  home-u60:~> grep ncurses /var/sadm/install/contents

588 ==/dkcjunk==> grep ncurses /var/sadm/install/contents
/opt/sfw/kde/share/apps/quanta/tags/php/ncurses.tag f none 0444 root bin 15390 26791 1062881266 SFWkde
589 ==/dkcjunk==> file /opt/sfw/kde/share/apps/quanta/tags/php/ncurses.tag
/opt/sfw/kde/share/apps/quanta/tags/php/ncurses.tag:    ascii text
590 ==/dkcjunk==> wc !$
wc /opt/sfw/kde/share/apps/quanta/tags/php/ncurses.tag
     356    1066   15390 /opt/sfw/kde/share/apps/quanta/tags/php/ncurses.tag
591 ==/dkcjunk==>

Suggestions?

David

Install SFWncur from the companion CD (the same CD you used
to install the other /sfw packages)

I recall asking for an example to substantiate this remark before,
but saw none.

--
Thomas E.{*filter*}ey
http://www.**-**.com/
ftp://invisible-island.net

* Thomas{*filter*}ey <dic...@saltmine.radix.net>:

I often use xoverlay to look at videoes/tv. However I usually put a
xtern with the xoverlay color on top of mplayer to be able to work while
I keep watching whatever. Usually I have a light background while
watching tv/video I have a dark background. However to be able to work
with the xoverlay stuff the background of my application always has to
be the 'default' background color of the xterm.

It isn't possible to obtain that with ncurses, but with slang.

        (faui03) [~] cat .mutt/colors
        # colors
        color normal     default        default
        color attachment red            default
        color hdrdefault cyan           default
        color indicator  default        cyan
        color markers    green          default
        color quoted     green          default
        color signature  cyan           default
        color status     brightgreen    blue
        color tilde      blue           default
        color tree       red            default

        color header     red            default ^From:
        color header     red            default ^Date:
        color header     red            default ^To:
        color header     red            default ^Reply-To:
        color header     red            default ^Cc:
        color header     red            default ^Subject:

        color body      blue default [\-\.+_a-zA-Z0-9]+@[\-\.a-zA-Z0-9]+
        color body      blue default (https?|ftp)://[\-\.\,/%~_:?\#a-zA-Z0-9]+
        color body      red default ^[+-].*
        color body      blue default ^[-].*

        color index     red default "~N"

note the default entry. So it is possible to read text on bright and
dark backgrounds while also be able use the xoverlay trick at demand.

Apart from that I remember only one benefit (a bug in ncurses which
doesn't trigger in slang, but I don't remeber the details). However the
feature described above is vital for me!

        Thomas

hmm - no.  ncurses and slang are equivalent in their capabilities here.
For ncurses, it is activated by function calls, e.g., use_default_colors.

You're either describing a difference in the way mutt is coded, or some
other configuration issue.  Just checking, for example (with lynx where
those aren't a factor, I see the so-called transparency, while Debian's
mutt 1.5.4i with libncursesw doesn't).

Looking a little further (compiling 1.5.6 myself), I do indeed get the
transparency.  Perhaps you should file a bug report against the appropriate
package - whatever problem is actually there isn't in the original sources.

--
Thomas E.{*filter*}ey
http://www.**-**.com/
ftp://invisible-island.net

I didn't dive that deep into ncurses / slang to know, but it makes
sense of course.

If I use a ncurses enabled mutt. He doesn't know about the 'default' -
color I described earlier in that thread, while a slang enabled mutt
does. So I never really cared.

Was it possible for you to get the transparency with ncurses and mutt?
If this is true for you, how?

When I compile mutt from cvs against the most recent version of ncurses.
I get the following errors on startup and after that I have default
colors for the 'default' stuff:

(faui03) [~/work/mutt/mutt] ./mutt
Error in /home/cip/adm/sithglan/.mutt/colors, line 2: default: no such color
...
Error in /home/cip/adm/sithglan/.mutt/colors, line 25: default: no such color
Error in /home/cip/adm/sithglan/.muttrc, line 10: source: errors in /home/cip/adm/sithglan/.mutt/colors
source: errors in /home/cip/adm/sithglan/.muttrc

However I will bring this to mutt-dev.

        Thomas

well, I do look.  iirc, mutt's use of default colors was done first with
ncurses.  Some people use that.  I originally came up with the idea since
it was a good way to make my directory editor work (it uses curses to
manage only part of the screen).  So I do use the feature often, but not
in the context of mutt.

I suspect there is a defect in the package.  Many packages do not run the
configure script, but provide specific ifdef's.  It is also possible that
the system on which a configure script could have some other problems.

If it hadn't worked out-of-the-box, I would have looked further, to see
what the problem was.  Mutt's configure script is a little weak in detecting
conflicts - this is aggravated on Solaris by the sunfreeware package, which
puts ncurses conflicting with Sun's curses.

I have local copies of the sources for the interesting releases of mutt
(since I occasionally have some reason to test it).  So I just unpacked
the most recent one and built it.  My Debian has 1.5.4; I built 1.5.6.
That might be a factor.

--
Thomas E.{*filter*}ey
http://www.**-**.com/
ftp://invisible-island.net

you're totally right. It works just like a charm for me under Debian,
too.

        Thomas

For Solaris, I occasionally do test-compiles (on this host for instance,
which has the sunfreeware package installed).  I use a script for setting
up this, e.g.,

cfg-curses is

#!/bin/sh
# work-around broken sfw package for ncurses, as well as Sun's broken headers.
CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include \
-D_XOPEN_SOURCE=500 \
-D_XOPEN_VERSION=4" \
CC=cc-curses cfg-normal $*

cc-curses is

#!/bin/sh
cc \
-D_XOPEN_SOURCE=500 \
-D_XOPEN_VERSION=4 \
-I/usr/include $* -L/usr/lib -lcurses

and cf-normal is

#!/bin/sh
OUT=configure.out
cat >>$OUT <<EOF/
** `date`
** node: `hostname`
** user: `id`
** conf: $*
EOF/
rm -f config.status config.cache
./configure --verbose \
        --disable-echo \
        --disable-overwrite \
        --enable-warnings \
        --with-warnings \
        --prefix=$HOME \
        --exec-prefix=$HOME $* 2>&1 | tee -a $OUT

--
Thomas E.{*filter*}ey
http://www.**-**.com/
ftp://invisible-island.net

Thanks to whoever, about a week ago, posted here or emailed me,
I forget which, that there was an ncurses right there on
the solaris-9 (12/3) companion-cd -- and indeed there is!

      SFWWncur is its name.

pkgadd on it, and vim, lynx, etc all work just fine!

But you have to add it by-hand -- at least none of the
"clusters" (eg "desktop applications", "editors", ...) that
*I* installed from that cd included it -- which is of course
a mistake.

FINAL QUESTION: who's the guy who builds that CD?  And, how
to get to him/her, to tell about this, so they can
include it in the depends next time?

And thanks for all the feedback you gave!

David

PS: well, one more: what's the "W" stand for, in
"SUNWxyz...", "SFCWabc", etc?

SUNW is the stock exchange symbol for Sun Microsystems, Inc.