modern and simple ncurses/PDCurses based library for CUA look menu

I didn't find any library for Unix terminal applications for creating pull down and menu bar menus. My short target is library for menu with midnight commander look. The origin ncurses menu are not designed for CUA applications, and cannot be used for these types of applications. This is library - small library. It does only pulldown menus and menubars, nothing else. It is not complex framework with thousand functions.

• CUA look pulldown and menu bar support

• Support inner accelerator x and outer accelerator x

• Menubar are accessable via Alt x accelerators

• Nested pulldown menu are suppported

• Possible to set style (14 attributes, 12 styles are prepared)

• Possible to set shadow around pulldown menu

• Mouse is supported

• Possible serialize and load state of menu objects

• Menu is scrollable when has more items than can be displayed

• The usage pattern is close to original ncurses menu library. A menudata are created by functions st_menu_new or st_menu_new_menubar. A function st_menu_post displays menu, and function st_menu_unpost hides menu. Any event can be processed in menu library by function st_menu_driver and menu can be removed by function st_menu_free.

• Compatible with PDCurses (offers Windows support--among others)

Use the following to build for ncurses. (PDCurses specific build information is detailed later in this document)

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

NOTE: To generate a debug build append --enable-debug to the configure statement.

Creates demoapp and demoapp_sl. demoapp_sl uses shared library - and it can be executed by LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. /.demoapp_sl. Note: when you doesn't modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH, you should to run make install for correct behave of demoapp_sl (demo with shared library).

Command|Set style submenu is active - you can change styles interactivly.

When there are no ncursesw library, then modify Makefile and replace ncursesw by necurses, and remove -DNCURSES_WIDECHAR=1.

To remove all built objects/executable/etc run:

make clean

To remove the files created by the autotools as well as objects/executable/etc:

make cleanall

#ifdef HAVE_LANGINFO_CODESET
#include <langinfo.h>
#endif
#include <locale.h>
#include "st_curses.h"
#include "st_panel.h"
#include <string.h>
#include <unicase.h>

#include "st_menu.h"

/*
 * Read event. When event is mouse event, read mouse data
 */
static inline int
get_event(MEVENT *mevent, bool *alt)
{
	bool	first_event = true;
	int		c;

	*alt = false;

repeat:

	c = getch();

	/*
	 * Read mouse event when it is possible. Do it now, before st_menu_driver call,
	 * as protection to unwanted multiple call of getmouse function. For one mouse
	 * event, it returns data only once time.
	 */
	if (c == KEY_MOUSE)
	{
		int ok = getmouse(mevent);

		if (ok != OK)
			goto repeat;
	}

	if (c == ST_MENU_ESCAPE)
	{
		if (first_event)
		{
			first_event = false;
			goto repeat;
		}
	}

	*alt = !first_event;

	return c;
}

/*
 * Application demo
 */
int
main()
{
	PANEL *mainpanel;
	ST_MENU_CONFIG  config;
	ST_MENU_ITEM		   *active_item;
	struct ST_MENU *menu;
	bool	activated;
	int		c;
	MEVENT	mevent;
	bool	alt;
	bool	force8bit;

	ST_MENU_ITEM _file[] = {
		{"E~x~it", 34, "Alt-x"},
		{NULL, -1, NULL}
	};

	ST_MENU_ITEM menubar[] = {
		{"~F~ile", 61, NULL, 0, _file},
		{NULL, -1, NULL}
	};

	setlocale(LC_ALL, "");

    #ifdef HAVE_LANGINFO_CODESET
	/* Don't use UTF when terminal doesn't use UTF */
	config.encoding = nl_langinfo(CODESET);
	#else
	config.encoding = "";
	#endif

#ifdef LIBUNISTRING

	config.language = uc_locale_language();

#else

	config.language = NULL;

#endif
    
	force8bit = strcmp(config.encoding, "UTF-8") != 0;

	initscr();
	start_color();
	clear();
	cbreak();
	noecho();
	keypad(stdscr, TRUE);

#ifdef NCURSES_EXT_FUNCS

	set_escdelay(25);

#endif

	refresh();

	init_pair(1, COLOR_WHITE, COLOR_BLUE);

	/* load style, possible alternatives: ST_MENU_STYLE_MC, ST_MENU_STYLE_DOS */
	st_menu_load_style(&config, ST_MENU_STYLE_VISION, 2, force8bit, false);

	mousemask(BUTTON1_PRESSED | BUTTON1_RELEASED, NULL);
	mouseinterval(0);

	/* prepare main window */
	wbkgd(stdscr, COLOR_PAIR(1));
	wclear(stdscr);
	wrefresh(stdscr);

	/*
	 * main window should be panelized. Only panels can be
	 * overlapped without unwanted effects.
	 */
	mainpanel = new_panel(stdscr);
	st_menu_set_desktop_panel(mainpanel);

	/* prepare state variable for menubar */
	menu = st_menu_new_menubar(&config, menubar);

	/* post meubar (display it) */
	st_menu_post(menu);

	c = get_event(&mevent, &alt);

	refresh();

	while (1)
	{
		bool	processed = false;

		processed = st_menu_driver(menu, c, alt, &mevent);

		doupdate();

		active_item = st_menu_selected_item(&activated);
		if (processed && activated)
		{
			/* here is processing of menucode related to Exit menu item */
			if (active_item->code == 34)
				break;
		}

		if (!processed && alt && c == 'x')
			break;

		/* get new event */
		c = get_event(&mevent, &alt);
	}

	endwin();

	st_menu_unpost(menu, true);
	st_menu_free(menu);

	return 0;
}

• optional libunistring - LGPL Unicode library

• define NCURSES_WIDECHAR when wide char ncurses support is available.

This is a simple overview on building PDcurses from source. For the latest info refer to the README files for each build directory/type.

cd PDCurses/x11
./configure
make

Building with MinGW using MSys

cd PDCurses/wincon
set PDCURSES_SRCDIR=c:\tmp\PDCurses
make DLL=Y

NOTE: To clean the build you will need to run rm *.o *.dll *.a since make clean was written expecting to run from a Windows Console (i.e. uses DEL).

To build for PDCurses you first need some added agruments for the configure prior to the make. The configure options are defined as:

PDCURSES_INSTALL If you have the PDCurses libs/headers installed you can simply use just this flag. The other options will be filled in for you. Currently support: "x11" NOTE: Other arguments not needed.
PDCURSES_INCDIR Directory containing the curses/panel headers
PDCURSES_LIBDIR Directory containing the PDCurses library
PDCURSES_LIB Name of the PDCurses library, defaults to 'libXCurses' (Linux), 'pdcurses' (Windows)
PDCURSES_DEP_LIBS List of the PDCurses dependant library (exclude PDCURSES_LIB).

NOTE: If you are pointing to the PDCurses github directory built for a specific OS/terminal you can omit the PDCURSES_INCDIR.

Built using MinGW from MSys. Install the following:

• pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-pkg-config
• pacman -S automake autoconf

This example builds from installed PDCurses for Linux X11:
NOTE: The build tools will setup all the other PDCURSES_xxx arguments for us.

./autogen.sh
PDCURSES_INSTALL=x11 ./configure
make

This example builds from PDCurses source for Linux X11:
NOTE: PDCURSES_LIB defaults to libXCurses so we don't need to specify it

./autogen.sh
PDCURSES_LIBDIR=/home/username/github/PDCurses/x11 ./configure
make

This is a complete example (ignores the fact that some variables are not needed):

./autogen.sh
PDCURSES_LIBDIR=/home/username/github/PDCurses/x11 \
PDCURSES_INCDIR=/home/username/github/PDCurses \
PDCURSES_LIB=libXCurses \
PDCURSES_DEP_LIBS=Xaw Xmu Xt X11 Xpm SM ICE Xext \
./configure
make

This example builds from PDCurses source for Windows:

./autogen.sh
PDCURSES_LIBDIR=/c/tmp/PDCurses/wincon ./configure
make

NOTE: To generate a debug build append --enable-debug to the configure statement.

PDCurses Ubuntu 16.04 X11

• Ubuntu 16.04, PDCurses X11
• Windows 10, PDCurses wincon
  • Build with MSys/MinGW

If you like it, send a postcard from your home country to my address, please:

Pavel Stehule
Skalice 12
256 01 Benesov u Prahy
Czech Republic

I invite any questions, comments, bug reports, patches on mail address [email protected]