'\"
'\" Copyright (c) 1996-1999 Christian Werner
'\"
'\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution
'\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.
'\" 
.so man.macros
.TH curses n 8.0 Ck "Ck Built-In Commands"
.BS
'\" Note:  do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below!
.SH NAME
curses \- Retrieve/modify curses based information
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBcurses\fR \fIoption \fR?\fIarg arg ...\fR?
.BE

.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
The \fBcurses\fR command is used to retrieve or modify information
which is related to the \fBcurses(3)\fR library providing the
input/output mechanisms used by Ck.
It can take any of a number of different forms,
depending on the \fIoption\fR argument.  The legal forms are:
.TP
\fBcurses barcode\fR \fIstartChar endChar ?timeout?\fR
Enables or modifies barcode reader support with delivery of \fBBarCode\fR
events. \fIStartChar\fR and \fIendChar\fR are the start and end characters
which delimit the barcode data packet without being delivered to the
application. They must be specified as decimal numbers.
The optional \fItimeout\fR argument is the maximum time between reception
of start and end characters in millisecond for receiving the data packet;
the default value is 1000.
.TP
\fBcurses barcode\fR \fI?off?\fR
If \fIoff\fR is present, barcode reader support is disabled. Otherwise,
the current start/end characters and the timeout are returned as a list
of three decimal numbers.
.TP
\fBcurses baudrate\fR
Returns the baud rate of the terminal as decimal string.
.TP
\fBcurses encoding \fR\fI?ISO8859|IBM437?\fR
Sets or returns the character encoding being or to be used for
displaying text. This affects for example the output of
the text widget for the character values 0x80..0x9f.
.TP
\fBcurses gchar \fR\fI?charName? ?value?\fR
Sets or returns the mappings of ``Alternate Character Set'' characters
used to display the arrows of scrollbars, the indicators for checkbuttons
and radiobuttons etc. \fICharName\fR must be a valid name of an ACS
character (see list below), and \fIvalue\fR must be an integer, i.e.
the value of the \fBcurses(3)\fR character which shall be output for the
ACS character. By default the \fBterminfo(5)\fR entry for the terminal
provides these mappings and there's rarely a need to modify them.
.sp 1
.ta 3c
.nf
\fBCk name	description\fR
ulcorner	upper left corner
urcorner	upper right corner
llcorner	lower left corner
lrcorner	lower right corner
rtee	tee pointing right
ltee	tee pointing left
btee	tee pointing up
ttee	tee pointing down
hline	horizontal line
vline	vertical line
plus	large plus or crossover
s1	scan line #1
s9	scan line #9
diamond	diamond
ckboard	checker board (stipple)
degree	degree symbol
plminus	plus/minus
bullet	bullet
larrow	arrow pointing left
rarrow	arrow pointing right
uarrow	arrow pointing up
darrow	arrow pointing down
board	board of squares
lantern	lantern symbol
block	solid square block
.fi
.TP
\fBcurses haskey\fR \fI?keyName?\fR
If \fIkeyName\fR is omitted this command returns a list of all valid
symbolic names of keyboard keys.
If \fIkeyName\fR is given, a boolean is returned indicating if the
terminal can generate that key.
.TP
\fBcurses purgeinput\fR
Removes all characters typed so far from the keyboard input queue. This
command should be used with great caution, since \fBxterm(1)\fR
mouse events and barcode events are reported through the keyboard
input queue as a character stream which can be interrupted
by this command.
.TP
\fBcurses refreshdelay \fR\fI?milliseconds?\fR
Sets or returns a time value which is used to limit the number of
\fBcurses(3)\fR screen updates. By default the delay is zero, which
does not impose any limits. Setting the refresh delay to a positive
number can be useful in environments where the terminal is connected
via terminal servers or \fBrlogin(1)\fR sessions.
.TP
\fBcurses reversekludge \fR\fI?boolean?\fR
Queries or modifies special code for treatment of the reverse video
attribute in conjunction with colors. On some terminals (e.g. the
infamous AT386 Interactive console), the reverse attribute overrides
the colors in effect. If the special code is enabled, the reverse
attribute is emulated by swapping the foreground and background colors.
.TP
\fBcurses screendump \fR\fIfileName\fR
Dumps the current screen contents to the file \fIfileName\fR if the
curses library supports the \fBscr_dmp(3)\fR function. Otherwise an
error is reported. The screen dump file is per se not useful, since
it contains some binary representation internal to curses. However,
there may exist an external utility program which transforms the screen
dump file to ASCII in order to print it on paper.
.TP
\fBcurses suspend\fR
Takes appropriate actions for job control, such as saving \fBcurses(3)\fR
terminal state, sending the stop signal to the process and restoring 
the terminal state when the process is continued.

.SH "SEE ALSO"
curses(3)

.SH KEYWORDS
screen, terminal, curses