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doc: Update netbsd/README regarding curses support
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Signed-off-by: Kang-Che Sung <[email protected]>
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Explorer09 committed Sep 12, 2024
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23 changes: 15 additions & 8 deletions netbsd/README.md
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Expand Up @@ -13,14 +13,21 @@ NetBSD is one of the last operating systems to use and maintain its own
implementation of Curses.

htop(1) can be compiled against either ncurses or NetBSD's curses(3).
In order for NetBSD's libcurses to be used, htop(1) must be configured with
`--disable-unicode`. This is necessary because htop(1) with Unicode enabled
directly accesses ncurses's cchar_t struct, which has different contents
in NetBSD's curses.

Versions of libcurses in NetBSD 9 and prior have no mouse support
(this is an ncurses extension). Newer versions contain no-op mouse functions
for compatibility with ncurses.
htop(1) would use ncurses by default when it is found, as NetBSD's curses
support in htop is limited.

To use NetBSD's libcurses, htop(1) must be configured with `--disable-unicode`.
Starting with htop 3.4.0, a new option `--with-curses=curses` may be specified
to let `configure` skip ncurses when both libraries are installed.

Technical caveats regarding NetBSD's curses support:

* htop with Unicode enabled directly accesses ncurses's `cchar_t` struct, which
has different contents in NetBSD's curses.

* Versions of libcurses in NetBSD 9 and prior have no mouse support
(this is an ncurses extension). Newer versions contain no-op mouse functions
for compatibility with ncurses.

What needs improvement
---
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